Is my CD burner broken?

[Red Stranger]

Hi. My CD burner is able to detect a CD that I've made before, but when I put in a blank CD it say there's no CD in the drive. I know this is not just a problem with a CD, because none of the blank CD's I put in worked (but they worked in other computers). I tried to troubleshoot the drive, but it said device is working properly. I would like to know if there is a way to find out if this is a software problem or a hardware problem or should I replace the drive.

 

[IglooDame]

It is working properly. It shouldn't show a blank (unformatted) CD as being in the drive, unless you're running a CD-burner application and it isn't seeing the blank CD for burning.

 

[Speedo]

What games have you installed lately (in the last 3-4 months)? You may have been bitten by Starforce.

 

[Red Stranger]

To IglooDude: It doesn't see the blank CD when I tried to burn it.

To Speedo: I installed Civ4 when it came out. But I just restored my computer, so I have nothing. I tried to burn just a word document to test if the burner works, but it doesn't. But my CD burner can see other files that I've burnt before when I put those CDs in.

 

[Speedo]

Do you have any of the games on this list? http://www.similarities.org/starforce.html

 

[Red Stranger]

No, I have none of those games.

 

[FriendlyFire]

What is the CD burners brand, model
How old is it ?
Have you been using it excessively ?

 

[Speedo]

It is possible that it just died then.

If it's older, I'd just break and get a new one - they're dirt cheap now.
If it's newer (still under warranty) see about getting it replaced.