Dvd burner issues

Hi guys! I've been having computer issues for the past month, and have asked everyone and their mother for help (except you guys) so its your turn now :lol: Please help if you can! I've looked over THIS THREAD because there was similarities in our issues, but mine are just a little different. :drama:

SO basically in a nutshell, every time I try to burn a dvd, my computer shuts itself off without warning. According to my BIOS, I'm not overheating or overclocking. I did have a few nasty viruses that ate up a lot of my core system files, so I ended up having to wipe my hard drive and clean install windows vista, but even after that, it still wouldn't work. I've emailed the software manufacturer (Xilisoft), but all they said was to download their newer version, which I did, and it didn't help at all. I've emailed the hardware manufacturer (Sony) but am still waiting for a response, and its been several days already :( My burner is an external, USB plug & play drive, so there are no drivers to update... I've used System File Checker and Microsoft's Mr. Fixit, but both programs insisted everything was fine... heeeeeeelp...

Oh yeah, and I don't know if this matters or not, cuz I really don't know that much about computers (all the fancy terms/tests/etc I've just stated, I learned all about in this past month :lol:) but I happened to notice that my entire computer is reading the wrong model of my burner! I have a Sony DRX-840U drive, and all three of the burning programs I've used (not to mention my Device Manager!) insist it is a Sony DRU-840A drive. Which it's not. I've even gone to Sony's website and looked up that drive, and it's an internal drive O_o So I'm thinking that might be the problem (since I've had this burner for about a year now, and this is the first problem I've ever had with it!) but I have no idea what to do about it. Any ideas?

Did you updated the burner's firmware to the right model? Try to do that, maybe it's Vista issue.

Thank you for responding! :hug:

Well, I tried updating the firmware from Sony's site, but under the tab for that was just a link to their diagnostic tool that doesn't work (even though I've unplugged every USB port EXCEPT my burner, it still won't register that its even there... just a blank, empty drop down menu :() and some rather unhelpful .pdf instructions :lol:

I think its Vista, too, though... so I'll keep looking for alternate sites, etc. Maybe there's an update for it somewhere else...?

I would bet that the reason the drive is being incorrectly identified is that the Sony DRX-840U is actually a DRU-840A in an external drive housing (I haven't checked this, but it would be a typical cost-saving measure to manufacture the same components for both drives and just package them differently). At this point, I would strongly suggest testing the drive with another computer to make sure that the problem isn't at that end (assuming you haven't done this already).

To be honest, if you were using an older version of Windows, my first guess would be that you were using an incorrect driver and that forcibly installing the correct one would likely fix the problem, but apparently Vista has taken it upon itself to use some sort of built-in generic driver . . . possibly the wrong one, since it's mis-detecting your drive as an internal model, but if there's no specific driver for the DRX-840U, I don't know if there's any way you can fix it. Has your computer been running Vista all along, or did you change the operating system after that infection forced you to reinstall?

@Eliddell - I've been running Vista the whole time... and I had no idea that they do things like that internal/external thing... it does make sense though.

Anyways, guys, I've managed to solve the problem! I have a custom-built computer, and I didn't realize if I went to the motherboard manufacturer's website, they'd have updates there (I'd just been going to Microsoft) but Munemasa Katagiri-san's suggestion about updating firmware gave me the idea... so I installed an update for my mobo, and suddenly everything works :lol: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to help me out though, I really, really appreciate it :D

Cool to know that! XD
Sometimes chipset update makes miracles.