My CD/DVD RW drive is acting like a ROM drive. I think it is the drivers problem on the drive and I found out that I need to update my drivers - 24 of them are out of date.

Can you recommend a driver update program that is free? I thought there was one out there but can not find it.

Device Driver - NO
Driver Doctor - NO

Thanks

I've never installed any drivers for CDRW drives.
Burning software yes, drivers no.

It's possible you need a firmware update for the drive (not the same as drivers) or drivers for your motherboard. If you have a brand name computer, look for the drivers on the brand name computer's website. If you have a home built or you added the drive yourself, look for the drivers on the drive's brand name website.

There's also the old solution (since Windows 95) of removing the drive from Device Manager and rebooting to let Windows re-detect the drive.

Some people believe certain copy "protections" programs messed up their CDRW drives so their burning speed was much slower or they stopped burning entirely. This may be due to filter drivers installed by the copy "protection." It could also be due to the drive being changed to PIO mode because of misreads.

Or your CDRW may just be wearing out.

I don't know of any good free driver update programs other than the ones that come with Windows. You can try searching at Softpedia.com or Majorgeeks.com or similar websites for driver update software. Sometimes people leave reviews of the software which would give you an idea which work best.

I have a Tsstcorp CD/DVDw TS-H552D drive with a Gateway GM5076E

On some sites, people are having a problem with the RW drive but I am wondering if it is the drivers/computer or the drive itself.

Can you describe just what issue you're having with the drive?

My guess is it would be the drive itself if it used to work and now doesn't. Not necessarily that it can't burn anymore but maybe something broken in the way it identifies itself to Windows.

You could try this, which involves a registry edit so the drive is recognized as a burner
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529

There are some other possible fixes here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324129

Could be, I was just curious what exactly was happening. If he's having an issue writing to the drive, it may be media related. I've run into situations where blank media isn't detected.

Update - I tried
- the updates - 2 - did not think it worked
- updating the drivers from the CD - worked with burning/writing CD only - half way there
- create/burn a DVD with copy and paste files, did not work
- tried to make it work with programs - no
- went into drive letter and mark a program to make it work - no
- tried it with data/pictures - yes !!!
worked with programs, it picked up a program by itself - Cyberlink Power2Go

It transferred the info and then went back and burn the DVD !!!! YES !! I was at this for about a day and half. I was almost going to give up and the computer angel landed on my shoulder. Thank you all!!

You'll need 3rd party software to support that one. XP doesn't support drag and drop to optical drives.

If your PC shipped with Roxio or Nero, you may need to reinstall it. Nero's package is InCD, I don't recall what Roxio used.