cannot burn or copy CD in iTunes 8~ tried everything!

Brilliant, many thanks to both Dinali_uk and Tikihaha (for the shortened version). After much fruitless struggling can now burn discs (again)
This problem is widespread, with loads of different answers (upper and lower filters etc) this simple fix should be widely available and should come up early on Google etc.
Thanks again.

I have the same problem with the latest updates. I can burn music imported to itunes library from CDs purchased through regular retail stores but not any of the material purchased through the itunes store. I chatted with a support person for an hour and did everything he asked and the problem is not resolved. I know it isn't a problem with authorization, my burner, or the driver because otherwise I wouldn't be able to play songs in itunes or burn anything in itunes or out. I get an error message every single time I try to burn any music purchased through itunes. It says: " itunes the attempt to burn a disc failed. An unknown error occurred (4000). Has anyone been able to correct this? I have tried to contact Apple twice and still haven't had the problem resolved. I even did as they suggested and removed the latest version of itunes and installed an older version but then I couldn't access the itunes library at all because it kept telling me it was set up by a newer version. So I had to uninstall the older version again and reinstall the one that won't let me burn CDs.
Has anyone had any luck in actually getting some help from itunes or Apple?

denali, you are the MAN!!! Thank you so much--your fix worked perfectly, and this tip on hidden folders was key! This ended months of frustration for me.

Thanks to denali and others for offering suggestions.

This didn't help me. I did it twice, nothing. Then again, I've not had problems burning audio cd's in iTunes 8. I just can't back up anything to disk (data disk on DVD). I'm scared I'm going to lose stuff if I can't re-back everything up (haven't done it for a year or two). I've been able to do it once in about 15 tries.

It also ***** because videos take up so much space...you have to occasionally delete a video to have enough room on your iPod to add another. Well that's fine and dandy if I already have the video backed up to disk (I deleted "The Punisher" last night so I could download "The Dark Knight"). If not....UGH!!

I hope iTunes next version (8.0.3? or whatever) has this fixed. VERY annoying. Spending lots of $$ in the iTunes store, don't want to lose my stuff. None of us do!!

I'm sorry, i'm computer ********. What if I don't see any documents and settings folder un the c drive?? This seems to be the most popular fix for this problem, so any help would really be appreciated!

cbunk wrote:
What if I don't see any documents and settings folder un the c drive??

If you're running XP and you have no Documents And Settings folder then you've got big problems. It's an essential path and present on every installation, even if you've moved the My Documents folder.

Under Vista the temporary files are stored elsewhere ( C:Users<username>AppDataLocalTemp if memory serves ) so you might be able to find the Gear installer somewhere in there. But remember this fix was for XP. I can't guarantee it'll do anything on a Vista installation. In fact if what many people were speculating about the Vista installer is true -- that the drivers don't install because they're not signed -- then this fix won't work anyway unless Apple provide signed drivers.

Kudos to Dinali and Tikihaha! With some slight modifications, your solution worked and I am now able to burn CDs on iTunes again. At first I was skeptical because the only "x86" subfolders I could find on my computer belonged to Turbo Tax, but then, improvising on something Tikihaha said, I did a search for "GEARAspiWDM" and, VOILA, found a subfolder that dated to my first attempt several weeks ago to install iTunes 8.0. After that it was easy -- copied the folder to my desktop, right-clicked on it, clicked install, rebooted, opened iTunes (no more nagging messages about missing registry settings)and suddenly, as if by magic, I'm burning CDs again. I had spent several days trying to deal with this problem and was really at my wit's end, so it was a great feeling to find something that worked and was so simple.

Yep. It's true - Denali_uk you are AMAZING!! thank you thank you thank you. Followed your steps and EUREKA! My Itunes 8 is now burning CDS!! Woooop woooop! Thanks for posting the details!

Oh yeah!!!! Success on this end as well (just started with step #5 and all is well).

Hey Apple! You owe Denali a free iPod Touch for giving many users a fix to your buggy program!

Thanks to Denali_uk, this has taken forever to get fixed, but all good now, u should be on retainer for apple....

Thank you for your help. I am not sure how you came up with this solution, but thank you for posting it, because it worked!!! Thanks again

HELP!!!!!
I have the same problem with not being able to use my disc drive after installing itunes 8. I am really thick when it comes to computers so was wondering if someone could tell me step by step what to do and look for in DUMMY TERMS! how to fix this problem. I use a laptop with Windows Vista.

coco2688 wrote:
HELP!!!!!
I have the same problem with not being able to use my disc drive after installing itunes 8. I am really thick when it comes to computers so was wondering if someone could tell me step by step what to do and look for in DUMMY TERMS! how to fix this problem. I use a laptop with Windows Vista.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, I've only effected this fix on Windows XP and I've no idea whether the symptoms even have the same root cause on Vista.

Having said that, the method outlined below is based on the original and has been tested on a virtual Vista32 machine and it does work, insomuch as it manually runs the Gear driver installer. It's about as simple as it gets, thanks to the other contributors to this thread for paring it down and eliminating unnecessary uninstalls and reboots, but I must reiterate that I cannot guarantee this will do anything to fix the CD burning problem under Vista. I have only seen the fix work on XP.

1. Install iTunes. If you chose to run on completion, close iTunes.
2. Click Start and type gear*.inf, and press Return.
3. Click Advanced Search.
4. Under the Location drop-down (where it says Indexed Locations), select Computer.
5. Tick the box that says Include Non-Indexed, Hidden And System Files,and the search should begin. If it doesn't, click the grey Search button to the right of this.
6. When the search completes you should see a file in black, GEARAspiWDM. If you see another copy in blue this means the driver is already installed (or at least Windows believes it to be) so this fix may not work 😟
7. Right-click on the black GEARAspiWDM and select Open File Location.
8. You should see four files and an x86 folder. Right-click on the GEARAspiWDM file and select Install.
9. Vista may pop up a UAC window. Click Continue, then reboot when the installation completes. This final reboot may not be strictly necessary but as I can't test it on real hardware it's probably best to be safe.

(For anyone itching to reply that there are easier/quicker/alternative ways of doing all that in Vista, +I know+. It's just that coco2688 wanted a step-by-step procedure, so that's what I've done).

Note that this procedure has only been tested on a virtual Vista 32bit installation. If your Vista is 64bit the above might still help although some locations and filenames may change. Of course if the change in driver methodology is so great that the procedure doesn't work at all then I'm afraid you're on your own; I have no way of virtualising a 64bit Vista to try out anything new.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I've spent the last 3 hours trying to fix this 8.0 problem...installed and rebooted at least 4 times (the computer I'm using takes about 10 minutes to reboot each time), time hunting down fixes and so on...yours was the only one that worked! Yay!

I was able to go from step 5 (at that point, though, I had reinstalled the program and removed it already) and get it to work.

Never, never buy your 5 year old niece a MP3 player when you have an iPod, especially when her parents aren't technical. LOL.

Thanks again!

Great big thanks to blondieskatz and denali uk for troubleshooting this CD burning issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After I found the x86 file which contained GEARAspiWDM.inf file, I followed instructions to reinstall the inf file and it worked!! I have a Vista machine, so I was leery about succeeding. I actually had to delete another CD writing program NTI CD writer, before the inf file would reinstall. Now I can watch the Super Bowl in peace!!!! Thank you to everyone in the forum.