How to check what your disc drive can write
Tools > Drive information in Burn by Zaweba shows what your drive reads and writes, its firmware, the disc in it and the write speeds it offers.
Drive information, under the Tools menu of Burn by Zaweba, answers it. The page shows your writer's model, firmware and drive letter, which kinds of disc it reads and which it writes, the disc that's in it now, free space on that disc, the write speeds available including CAV, and whether it has buffer-underrun protection. Other optical and virtual drives on the PC are listed too.
It's the page to look at before buying blank discs, and the first place to go when a burn won't start.
Reading the drive information page
The model and firmware identify the drive exactly. That helps if you look up its manual or check whether the maker has a firmware update. The drive letter tells you which drive Burn is talking to when a PC has more than one.
The read and write lists are the heart of it. A drive that reads Blu-ray doesn't necessarily write it, and many older drives write CDs and DVDs but not Blu-ray at all. Some write DVD+R but handle DVD-R or rewritable types differently. If a disc type isn't on the write list, the drive can't burn it, however many times you try.
The section on the disc in the drive shows what Burn has detected and how much space is free, which settles questions like whether a disc is blank or was left open with room for more.
Write speeds and buffer-underrun protection
The page lists the write speeds the drive offers for the current disc, including CAV, a mode where the speed rises across the disc. On the data disc page you can choose a write speed, and if burns are failing, picking a slower one is a common fix.
Buffer-underrun protection lets a drive pause and carry on if the PC can't feed it data quickly enough, rather than ruining the disc. Most modern drives have it. The data disc page shows buffer-underrun status as well.
Other places the drive shows up
The status bar at the bottom of Burn's window always shows the writer and the disc in it, with an Eject button. If you plug in a USB drive or put a disc in and Burn hasn't noticed, press F5 or use View > Look for drives again to scan afresh.
Virtual drives appear in the list as well. When you mount an image with Burn, Windows' own mounting gives it a drive letter, and it shows up as a drive you can open like any disc.
No writer at all?
If Drive information finds no writer, you can still do a lot. Making ISO images from folders, converting old images, mounting them and planning backups all work without a burner. Burning, erasing and reading physical discs need a drive, and a plug-in USB writer is the usual answer for laptops without one.
Burn by Zaweba is free and offline, so it's easy to keep on a PC just for checking drives. A minute on this page saves buying a pack of discs your drive can't use.
