Please help!! I bought an eMachines T2894 with CD-RW combo drive last month and cannot burn CDs using any brand of CD-R or CD-RW blank discs so far except for Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-RW Ultra Speed+ CD-Rewritable discs (I've only tried burning data discs with Verbatim - audio and data with all others). I've tried Sony, TDK and Maxwell CD-R's (all up to 48x write speed, same as my driver) and Maxwell (Philips) CD-RW's (4-12x). The Maxwell are particularly bad because blank ones are fine, but once I burn using either Windows Media Player (9 and 10) or Roxio (directly through my computer not going through the player, as audio or data), neither my computer nor the Dell I use at work can either read or play the discs. My T2894 sounds like it's trying to run the Maxwells but can't, and my work computer sticks and has to be manually shut down when trying to even read them. As for the CD-R's, the disc shuts down after converting files half-way through burning even at 8x write speed. I haven't used the reboot disc yet eMachines sends that brings my machines back to original settings (and wipes all my music, video, etc.), and want to save that as a last resort. I burn discs fine at work from the Verbatim discs I burn as data at home and bring with me, but that's tedious and takes the life out of my CD projects. I called eMachines and dwas told I should be able to use both CD-R's and CD-RW's. Last thing - does CD-RW mean a blank CD is rewritable? I know this sounds dumb, but I haven't been able to reuse the Maxwell CD-RW's even at work (my work computer can burn and erase CD-R's and CD-RW's), and I'm finding at work I can't even erase the Verbatim rewritables through Roxio. Net result I'm hoping for is to be able to use CD-R's as have a ton of the TDK left and don't like the idea of always having to use rewritables. Do I need a new driver or buring program? Thank you!!

I have been fighting the combo drive issue,

I can play any media, and I have flashed the firmware,

The trick is to try this, right after you turn the computer on after it's been off all night try to burn a project,
I have had it work then it stops recognizing the blank media, it just says the drive isn't ready.

I then power down the computer and reinstall the older sony writer and it will burna few disks and then it will stop recognizing media.

It has to be a compatibility issue.

I am running windows 2000, dell l500c

Yah, this is a strict forum...have you found the answer to your problem? because I got the exact same problem also I think. I too cant burn on my combo drive..I get tis Error and a link to Roxio. To test it with another burner type application I tried to copy some audio files in Windows Media Player 9(I have not upgraded yet). First it said I might need to clean the drive, get a different brand of discs, and slow the write speed so I do that... then the Media Player Error changes (when I try to copy the audio data again) to: CD-RW is busy Wait for the drive to complete its current operation, and try again...or cd drive is not compatible-see if its conected properly and try again! I tried Roxio again and nothing not even a change in the error message.
It can Read data from a disc fine. But I need to copy a bunch of data to some cd-r's and reboot Winows XP before my system crashes from a virus or something. Did you get any good advice from someone or does my ramblings help? If you could help me Email me please...Bookstainer@aol.com (note the 'B' is capitalized, I forget if it's case sensitive).
ALSO before I cleaned the drive (when I was doing the Windows Media 9 thing) the Error ID was 0xc00D11AB THEN cleaned it and it changed to 0xC00D11C9. Thank you, Sherry.