LG [HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8481B] Driver problems

[ABEO]

I have have an LG Electronics HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8481B.

Lately it never burns CDs and stops halfway through with a buffer underun error(or something like that)

Now the drivers have dissapeared...

Does anyone know why the first problem stated occurs and can anyone tell me where I can find the drivers for this drive?

Thanks

[XtremeMaC]

well there are severals reasons for buffer underrun but driver dissapearence is wierd though not that wierd bc i've had the same problem. all my optical drives along with virtual drivers disappeared after something i couldn't find as of yet, so what i did was i uninstalled all the optical drivers from hardware, (if u don't see them click on view hidden devices and remove them)

then looked at cdrom.inf and copied the "copy" files to a folder along with the inf. (the files are everywhere, driver.cab and sp2 cab has them..)

and installed the inf and after a restart all my drives came back.

and for buffer underrun, possible reasons,

1. u don't have enough ram (u're using lots of programs during the burn)

2. i'm not sure but does your cd-rw have buffer underrun protection? (they definitely help)

3. try finding a new firmware for your cd-rw (be carefull if u flash the wrong firmware it might become useless)

4. your drive could be dead or simply the laser might need little cleaning

5. the quality of the blank media also very important, have u changed it recently? if not see if a good brand of blank media helps.

also u shouldn't be looking for drivers. don't even search for them bc xp uses xp's own driver which is cdrom.inf, u'll only come up with dos drivers if u search for it and they're useless under xp..

[ABEO]

Thanks mate!

CD-ROM is working again now but I still can't burn

1. u don't have enough ram (u're using lots of programs during the burn)

I have plenty of Ram and always close every thing when burning anyway

2. i'm not sure but does your cd-rw have buffer underrun protection? (they definitely help)

I don't know, but programs like Nero have it as an option, I have tried with it on and off.

3. try finding a new firmware for your cd-rw (be carefull if u flash the wrong firmware it might become useless)

Any idea where I can find it? I have never flashed anything before

4. your drive could be dead or simply the laser might need little cleaning

It still works for most things, yesterday I installed a Driving Theory Test program and it kept saying I needed to insert the CD(it works fine on my dads PC), could be something there.

5. the quality of the blank media also very important, have u changed it recently? if not see if a good brand of blank media helps.

I am using RiDATA 52x CD-r disks, again my dad and sister use these with no problem and they always work from their PCs

I think I'll try the flash idea and if that doesn't help I'll swap it for an older drive.

[maxXPsoft]

http://us.lgservice.com/index_b2c.jsp

Link there - How do I update firmware?

Somewhere on here they had a util to test it.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/drive/firmware/906

LG GCE-8481B - Firmware version: 1.02

I have a 8240B which has been a pretty good CD RW

[ardnelias]

@ABEO

This might seem silly but have you tried replacing the IDE cable of your cd drive. The problem could be because of a defective cable you know. I suggest you try that before going for something risky as Flashing the drive.