How do you know if your Burner is Dead?

[pirranna]

Good evening all,

1)I Have a HP 8100i (really old I know...more about this later). I have been using Nero 5.5 (or is that 5.0.5?) to backup and archive office files and the like. Recently, the burn process and everything finished correctly but when you go and try to access the drive...I either get an error accessing the drive (i.e. drive not ready) or the CDR is blank. It looks like stuff has been burned onto the CD (as I can see that the burner seems to have done something). In the end, I am ending up with mini-projectile discs which are fun to throw around the room...can you say coaster?

I have tried other software programs (i.e. some HP crap burning programs)...but I get the same results. I NEVER get any write errors or warnings before the process begins...strange. I have heard drives have a "lifespan" before their laser burns out...and am wondering if the drive is gondie.

I am running on this machine:
Intel Se440bx-2 MB & 350Mhz PII Processor, Win 98 Clean installed all patches installed, Sb Live Value! and a geForce2 MX gfx processor.

2) If it sounds like my drive is shot (have tried quite a few things...but have a couple more ideas), what kind of burner would you recommend? It would be nice if I could get a DVD -R to backup X-box games but with their 8 gig size, not gonna happen with the present 4.3 gig DVD size...oh well. So I guess ideally, if I can get a DVD rom drive with a Burner that would be sweet (ie. the PlexCombo 20/10/40-12A: 20X CD Write, 10X CD Rewrite, 40X CD Read, 12X DVD Read internal ATAPI (E-IDE) )...but it is not necessary. While it would be nice to make 100% working backups without screwing around with no-cd cracks, in the past this has proven no huge deal. They are a huge deal, however, if your bonehead brother scratches a CD and their is no no-cd cracks out there. The plextors seem nice but they are bloody expensive up here in Canada...are they worth the money? Any other suggestions?

Thanks Guys,

PiRRANNA