Last year I bought a PIII 1 GHz running Windows Me. The computer has a CD-RW drive. However, after upgrading to Windows 2000 the CD-RW drive stopped working and I am not able to write any CDs. The Nero log advises that there has been a ‘medium speed error’. When I took the computer back to the vendor it wrote a CD successfully while at the shop but then failed to work when I returned home. Please advise. I am using Nero 5.

My original thought was that Nero 5 may not support Windows 2000. However, I checked the Nero website and it does. So we can rule out incompatibility. There are a few simple things we can try in order to fix your problem. Sometimes medium speed errors occur when you are trying to burn at a higher speed than for which the CD-R media is designed (the CD-R’s usually have their designed speed written on the packaging), or the CD-R has been designed to be burned at a higher speed than your CD-R is burning at, or the brand of CD-R’s you are using is not compatible with your drive. It is unlikely that your problem is related to the first reason as, from the log of your CD-RW drive which you emailed me, you are burning at 4x. However, the problem may be related to either/ or both of the other two suggestions (especially if your computer store used a different brand of CD-R than you are using). Try contacting the computer store to ask exactly what brand of CD-R they used when testing the computer. If you are still having problems, try uninstalling any other CD-R[W] software on your computer to lessen the probability of software conflicts.

Another reason you may be receiving the error is if an outdated Nero driver is installed. Another possibility is that when you installed Nero under Windows Me, a Nero driver specifically suited to Windows Me was installed. Since you upgraded to Windows 2000, the driver may not be suited to that version of Windows. Go to www.nero.com/en/index.html#download and scroll to the bottom of the page where the ‘Utilities’ section is located. Click on the link labeled WNASPI32.DLL. This will take you to the download page. Download the latest WNASPI32.DLL file and follow the instructions on the page for installation. You will probably find that there is already a WNASPI32.DLL file in your Nero folder. I suggest that you do not delete this file but instead change its name to WNASPI32.OLD (or alike), in case the newer version causes more problems and you need to revert to the original version.