I tell you, my parents' computer is really frustrating me:

CD Burning

It appears to not be possible to burn any CDs on my parents' computer. I've used several programs, including CDBurnerXP Pro, straight from WMP, and the built-in Windows burner, but none of them are able to burn. The frustrating part is that I don't seem to have any way of troubleshooting the problem. No errors show up in the event viewer (no messages at all), and none of the programs give any reason for their failed burns!

The drive is a SATA Plextor drive, no more than two years old. It's read every type of disc that's been put into it. It's just never been able to burn (and my parents never tried until recently).

Any suggestions?

Printer

This one is just as weird/frustrating. My folks bought a shiny new color Lexmark laser printer. It's very nice. Unfortunately we've had nothing but connectivity problems since it was installed. At first, I tried setting it up as a network printer. That didn't turn out well, because print jobs would take at least 5 minutes to print, no matter what the content (a simple text file, even). Then I tried USB. That worked fine, even though it still took about 20 seconds.

Then the computer's power supply died. I replaced it, but naturally, when I plugged all the USB devices back in, they weren't in the ports they were originally. Why is it that Windows needs to reinstall a device if you merely move it to another port? Anyway, now when the printer is connected via USB, it is impossible to print to it. The most annoying part is that it appears in the printers list, but with a gray icon, and it says it's not ready. I've tried to research the problem, but according to Microsoft, this is a bug that they haven't fixed yet. They don't offer any solutions. So what, is my only choice that if I want to use the printer, I have to reinstall Windows or something?

I have them set up temporarily. The last thing I tried was to connect the printer to their Airport Extreme and share it. This actually works pretty well, but still takes a long time to print to (about 45 seconds).

Any ideas? Thanks for any help you can give me, guys. These days I have been so insanely busy, I haven't had a chance to spend a good long time working on their computer. I've been going non-stop setting our house up, and the only relaxing I get to do anymore is when I watch my TV shows on the subway on my way into work!

I'd contact Plextor about the burning problem, but otherwise have no ideas.

Have you tried deleting the printer from the OS and reinstalling it? Maybe look at the "Ports" tab on the printer's properties dialog. Check in the Device Manager to see if the printer is showing up in the Unknown Devices section?

Tried those. There are no unknown devices, the port appears to be correct, and the real kicker: Windows won't let me delete the printer.

Does it give you an error when you try?

It did, but I'll have to check it again when I get a chance in order to tell you what the error was.

CD/DVD burning is still a black art. My main desktop PC has never successfully burnt a DVD and that is despite trying several DVD drives, two OS and numerous burning apps. And there is never any feedback on what might have gone wrong.

Matt,
This may help on the printer issue.

from the command line
"set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1"
"start devmgmt.msc"
then select "show hidden devices"

Just because a device isn't shown in device manager doesn't mean Windows does not know about it.

That's a definite possibility. I'll try a couple other types of media.

Having the wrong ASPI layer installed or a broken one installed can caused really bizarre problems with CD burners.

CDBurnerXP Pro is the only method that has given me an actual error to help:

Code:

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Writing Error: (3)  Error occurred writing data to disc.
Invalid command field (1022).
 Error Sense Data: SENSE KEY: 5 ASC: 24 ASCQ: 0

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I've tried several types of name brand and generic media, all with the same results.