[FIX] ‘A Disc Burner wasn’t Found’ when Burning an Image

Some Windows users are seeing the ‘A Disk Burner Wasn’t Found‘ error while attempting to burn an image to a disk using the native Image Burner client (isoburn.exe).

After investigating this particular issue, it turns out that there are several different potential culprits that might end up causing this particular issue:

Ensure that the drive has Writing Capability

Before you try any of the other fixes, you should start your troubleshooting attempts by determining either your CD or DVD writers has writing capabilities. Keep in mind that if you’re trying to burn a CD or DVD with a regular ROM only drive, none of the potential fixes below will work.

To find out if your current optical drive is capable of burning CDs and DVDs, simply open File Explorer, navigate to this PC and take a look at the name of your alleged DVD Drive from the right-hand section of the screen.

If the name of the optical drive contains the abbreviation RW (Read-Write), it should be capable to burn disks with the native burning utility (isoburn.exe).

If the investigations you’ve just performed have revealed that you’re indeed using a DVD Drive with writing capabilities, move down to the next potential fix below.

Running the Hardware & Devices troubleshooter (Windows 10 Only)

It turns out that you might expect to see this problem due to a glitch that affects Windows 10. As some affected users have reported, your OS might ‘forget’ that the optical drive has writing capabilities after you return it from hibernation mode.

In this case, you can restart your computer to fix the problem or you can run the hardware & device troubleshooter and apply the recommended fix the resolve the inconsistency that is making your system believe that your optical block doesn’t have writing capabilities.

To run the Hardware & Devices troubleshooter, follow the instructions below to start the utility from the Troubleshooting tab:

1. Open up a Run dialog box by pressing Windows key + R. Next, type ”ms-settings:troubleshoot’ and press Enter to open up the Troubleshooting tab of the Settings app.

   

2.  Once you’re inside the Troubleshooting tab, scroll all the way down to the section named Find and Fix other Problems, then click on Hardware and Devices. 
3. From the context menu associated with Hardware and Devices, click on Run the Troubleshooter.
   

   

4. Once you successfully manage to open the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter, wait patiently until the initial scan is complete.
5. If a viable repair strategy is identified, click on Apply this fix to enforce the repair strategy.

   

6. Once the fix is successfully applied, restart your computer and see if the problem is fixed once the next startup is complete by attempting to burn a CD or DVD with the same native utility (isoburn.exe).

If you’re still seeing the same ‘A disc burner wasn’t found‘ error, move down to the next potential fix below.

Restarting Explorer.exe

If the fix above didn’t work and you previously confirmed that your optical device has writing capabilities, your next step should be to close every instance of Windows Explorer (File Explorer) and then open it again from an elevated command prompt and launch the native writer (Burn Disk Image) via the context menu.

This operation was confirmed to work by some affected users that were previously encountering the ‘A disc burner wasn’t found‘ error.

Here’s a quick guide on how to restart Explorer.exe in an attempt to fix the glitch with the native burner app:

1. First things first, press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open up Task Manager.
2. Inside Task Manager, select the Processes tab, then scroll down through the list of active processes and locate explorer.exe (File Explorer) under Windows Explorer. When you see it, right-click on it and choose End Task from the newly appeared context menu.

   

3. Now that explorer.exe is completely closed, press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Next, type ‘cmd’ inside the text box, then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open up an elevated CMD prompt. When you’re prompted by the UAC (User Account Control), click Yes to grant administrative privileges.

   

4. Once you’re inside the elevated CMD prompt, type the following command and press Enter to open up File Explorer with admin privileges:

   explorer.exe

5. Once FIle Explorer is opened, navigate to the location of the .ISO file that you’re trying to burn, right-click on it and choose Burn Disk Image from the newly appeared context menu.

   

6. Configure the utility, launch it, and see if you still end up seeing the same ‘A Disk Burner Wasn’t Found‘ error.

In case the same problem is still occurring even after you’ve tried this fix, move down to the next method below.

Reinstalling the DVR writer Driver

As it turns out, this problem can also be the underlying cause of some type of inconsistency with the DVD-writer driver. If this scenario is applicable, you should be able to fix the problem by uninstalling the current driver that’s being used via Device Manager in order to force Windows to reinstall the generic equivalent at the next system startup.

If you’re looking for step by step instructions, follow the guide below to see how you can force your Windows computer to reinstall the DVD writer driver:

Note: These steps are universal and should work on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

1. Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Next, type ‘devmgmt.msc’ and press Enter to open up Device Manager. When you’re prompted by the UAC (User Account Control), click Yes to grant administrative privileges.

   

2. Once you’re inside Device Manager, expand the drop-down menu associated with DVD / CD-ROM drives, then right-click on the DVD writer that you’re having issues with and click on Uninstall from the context menu.

   

3. At the confirmation prompt, click Yes, then wait for the uninstallation process to complete before restarting your computer.
4. At the next startup, your operating system will be forced to install a generic driver equivalent to replace the instance that you just uninstalled
5. Once the next startup is complete, attempt to burn the ISO file once again and see if the problem is now fixed.

In case the same ‘A Disk Burner Wasn’t Found’ error is still occurring, move down to the next potential fix below.

Using a 3rd Party equivalent

Keep in mind that you cannot use isoburn.exe to burn a disk image (ISO) to a USB drive. The way the native utility builds, the burning engine will expect disks, not a flash USB drive. So even if you’re plan is to ‘burn’ the iso digitally on a flash drive, the native utility will not allow you to do this.

If this scenario is applicable, the only choice you have that will allow you to burn a file to a flash drive is to use a 3rd party equivalent like Rufus, ImageBurn, or similar.

In case you need instructions on doing this, we have created a step-by-step guide that will show you how to ‘burn’ ISO (or other image types) files on a flash drive using Rufus:

1. Open up your default browser and access the official download page of Rufus.
2. Once you land to the right place, scroll down to the download section and click on the latest version of Rufus to begin the installation.

   

3. Next, open the executable you’ve just downloaded and click Yes at the UAC (User Account Control) to grant administrative privileges to the installer.
4. Once you arrive at the main Rufus screen, select the flash drive where you want to ‘burn’ the file on using the Device drop-down menu.
5. Next, select Disk or ISO image under Boot Selection, then click on the Select button. Next, navigate to the location where you’re currently storing the ISO file. When you find it, click on it once to select it, then click on Open to load it up into Rufus.

   

6. Once Rufus is correctly configured and ready to go, simply click on Start and wait for the operation to complete.