Help! Can't read CD's or DVD's!!

[Nel]

Yesterday, I re-formatted my brother's PC as it was very sluggish, wasn't
reading DVD's and had problems accessing a hard drive. The plan was to do a
new install, identify & fix all problems, then do an image of the drive with
Ghost for him to use in the future and save me hours of time!!

His system was:
Prim-Mast 28G HDD (fine)
Prim-Slave DVD-ROM (quite old - doesn't read any CDR/DVDR's)
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW (Seemed to read original CD's & DVD's only)
Sec Slave 120Gig HDD (works for a short while, then gets corrupted
requiring re-format)

Re-installed XP & SP2, but found that the DVD drive still wasn't working and
was just showing a blank disc with whatever that was inserted - even after
checking all the cables.

Went back there today and found that he had bought a new DVDRW drive, so I
thought I'd simply swap out the Sec-Master and everything would be fine.
Still the same problem though!

Next I thought it might have been the EIDE cable, as he bought a new longer
one a couple of months to reach the furthest of the DVD drives in the case.
I removed this, and swapped everthing round so that all four devices would
connect using the shorter cables. Still no DVDR reading!!!

NEXT I thought it might be the secondary IDE channel (what with the problems
with the 120Gig drive) so I connected only the 28Gig hard drive as master
and new DVD as slave on the primary. STILL NOTHING!!!!!!

I've run out of options so if anyong can help.......PLEASE!!!!

 

[Michael Hawes]

Yesterday, I re-formatted my brother's PC as it was very sluggish, wasn't
reading DVD's and had problems accessing a hard drive. The plan was to do a
new install, identify & fix all problems, then do an image of the drive with
Ghost for him to use in the future and save me hours of time!!

His system was:
Prim-Mast 28G HDD (fine)
Prim-Slave DVD-ROM (quite old - doesn't read any CDR/DVDR's)
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW (Seemed to read original CD's & DVD's only)
Sec Slave 120Gig HDD (works for a short while, then gets corrupted
requiring re-format)

Re-installed XP & SP2, but found that the DVD drive still wasn't working and
was just showing a blank disc with whatever that was inserted - even after
checking all the cables.

Went back there today and found that he had bought a new DVDRW drive, so I
thought I'd simply swap out the Sec-Master and everything would be fine.
Still the same problem though!

Next I thought it might have been the EIDE cable, as he bought a new longer
one a couple of months to reach the furthest of the DVD drives in the case.
I removed this, and swapped everthing round so that all four devices would
connect using the shorter cables. Still no DVDR reading!!!

NEXT I thought it might be the secondary IDE channel (what with the problems
with the 120Gig drive) so I connected only the 28Gig hard drive as master
and new DVD as slave on the primary. STILL NOTHING!!!!!!

I've run out of options so if anyong can help.......PLEASE!!!!

Try a Win98 startup diskette, if it doesn't work with that, is hardware
problem with drive, cable or interface on motherboard. could be a duff
drive! Try it in another system.
Mike.

 

[Ed Cregger]

Try a Win98 startup diskette, if it doesn't work with that, is hardware
problem with drive, cable or interface on motherboard. could be a duff
drive! Try it in another system.
Mike.

XP doesn't come with a DVD reading algorhythm. You have to buy one and
install it.

I'm using Sonic's CinePlayer. I think it cost about $20 on the net.

Ed Cregger

 

[JAD]

Yesterday, I re-formatted my brother's PC as it was very sluggish, wasn't
reading DVD's and had problems accessing a hard drive. The plan was to do a
new install, identify & fix all problems, then do an image of the drive with
Ghost for him to use in the future and save me hours of time!!

His system was:
Prim-Mast 28G HDD (fine)
Prim-Slave DVD-ROM (quite old - doesn't read any CDR/DVDR's)
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW (Seemed to read original CD's & DVD's only)
Sec Slave 120Gig HDD (works for a short while, then gets corrupted
requiring re-format)

Re-installed XP & SP2, but found that the DVD drive still wasn't working and
was just showing a blank disc with whatever that was inserted - even after
checking all the cables.

Went back there today and found that he had bought a new DVDRW drive, so I
thought I'd simply swap out the Sec-Master and everything would be fine.
Still the same problem though!

Next I thought it might have been the EIDE cable, as he bought a new longer
one a couple of months to reach the furthest of the DVD drives in the case.
I removed this, and swapped everthing round so that all four devices would
connect using the shorter cables. Still no DVDR reading!!!

NEXT I thought it might be the secondary IDE channel (what with the problems
with the 120Gig drive) so I connected only the 28Gig hard drive as master
and new DVD as slave on the primary. STILL NOTHING!!!!!!

I've run out of options so if anyong can help.......PLEASE!!!!

your first option should have been suspecting the drive.
pull it and use it in another machine or from dos with cdrom
support(Win98/me boot disk)
don't have one www.bootdisk.com

 

[JAD]

XP doesn't come with a DVD reading algorhythm. You have to buy one and
install it.

I'm using Sonic's CinePlayer. I think it cost about $20 on the net.

Ed Cregger

I thought that was a "DVD' movie playback thing?....now fixed/featured in
WMP 10

 

[JAD]

do

your first option should have been suspecting the drive.

OOOPS you have susbsituted a drive.... I would suspect the following

Wrong drivers loading for the mainboard
Cable/connector on the IDE channel
PSU not up to the job anymore
conflicting software (if in fact you have installed any before you notice
the drive being dead.)

 

[Nel]

--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sunderlandfreecycle/
--

XP doesn't come with a DVD reading algorhythm. You have to buy one and
install it.

I'm using Sonic's CinePlayer. I think it cost about $20 on the net.

It's not reading DVD's on the drives (old & new) in data mode. I had burned
a DVD with a number of useful utilities for him when this very first came to
light.

 

[PWY]

OOOPS you have susbsituted a drive.... I would suspect the following

Wrong drivers loading for the mainboard
Cable/connector on the IDE channel
PSU not up to the job anymore
conflicting software (if in fact you have installed any before you notice
the drive being dead.)

What Jad is alluding to is when you formatted the disk, you removed the
motherboard drivers ( chipset drivers). Your drives won't work until you
replace them. It would be best to check the manufacturers website for the
newest drivers for the board.

PWY

 

[Ed Cregger]

I thought that was a "DVD' movie playback thing?....now fixed/featured in
WMP 10

It is a DVD movie playback thing, or at least I thought that was what he was
saying. If all he sticks in the drive is a DVD, it will act as though it is
dead without the little program you have to pay for, that used to be free.

I run WMP 10 and it has not been fixed, unless there is a newer version than
what I am running and that is unlikely since I have the update doohickey
turned on. I wish it was true, but I fear this is the future of our
treatment from Microsoft.

I was reading a thing somewhere the other day where lots of things we now
get for free will be rented on a monthly basis. The future sucks in this
regard. I hope I misread it, or that it was wrong.

Ed Cregger

 

[Ed Cregger]

--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sunderlandfreecycle/
--


It's not reading DVD's on the drives (old & new) in data mode. I had
burned a DVD with a number of useful utilities for him when this very
first came to light.

Okay. I understand now (Suuuuuuuuuuure I do!) <G>

Several years ago, I bought (assembled) a new computer. I used a then
current AMD 333 MHz chip, 256 mb of RAM, etc.. That was the last computer I
have had where I understood how to burn a CD. Since then, things have
changed and they have gotten way ahead of my knowledge. I have some drives
that allegedly will burn a DVD. It hasn't happened yet, though.
Additionally, Microsoft stopped providing the program to view a DVD with Win
XP. Further adding to my confusion. Getting old sucks. But it beats the
alternative - for a while longer, anyway.

Ed Cregger

Ed Cregger

 

[David Maynard]

Okay. I understand now (Suuuuuuuuuuure I do!) <G>

Several years ago, I bought (assembled) a new computer. I used a then
current AMD 333 MHz chip, 256 mb of RAM, etc.. That was the last computer I
have had where I understood how to burn a CD. Since then, things have
changed and they have gotten way ahead of my knowledge.

I don't understand what it is you think has changed in normal CD burning.

I have some drives
that allegedly will burn a DVD. It hasn't happened yet, though.

DVDs are another matter as they have a structure (menu, etc) and the video
must be of the proper format, and not just (normally) plot any old video
file on them somewhere. EZCDCreator, though, has a rather simplified way of
making a basic DVD with drag and drop onto their layout bar.

Additionally, Microsoft stopped providing the program to view a DVD with Win
XP.

Frankly, I didn't know they ever had such a thing as I never used a
'windows provided' anything to view a DVD.

 

[Darklight]

His system was:
Prim-Mast 28G HDD (fine)
Prim-Slave DVD-ROM (quite old - doesn't read any CDR/DVDR's)
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW (Seemed to read original CD's & DVD's only)
Sec Slave 120Gig HDD (works for a short while, then gets corrupted
requiring re-format)

that is a bad setup for starts you do know you only need one cdrom/dvd
drive, but that is just down to preference.

have you tried the hdd in a different pc.
you do know when copying a cd it's easier and faster to copy it to
the hdd first

if the above components work try this
Prim-Mast 120Gig HDD
Prim-Slave 28G HDD
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW

 

[BruceM]

DVD Codecs I've got for Windows Media Player.
bruce9950@@hotmail.com (remove obvious)

 

[kony]

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005 09:34:20 +0000 (UTC), Darklight

Comments to OP also embedded;

If you don't find this particular drive useful anymore,
remove it. Did it "never" read these CDR/DVDR or just after
aging? Might blow it out with compressed air but being old,
it's probably just time to replace it.

You need to check your copies in a drive known "good" for
read errors, need to isolate whether the drive itself is
having trouble on fairly well-written discs or it's just a
matter of some discs that weren't in very good shape to
start out.

If your optical drives are in a harsh (dusty) environment
that may be another obvious reason why they're subject to
short lifespan. If you found the discs written by the above
drive weren't readable on it, could be just that drive is
writing bad but again a trial of the discs, including
error-checking needs be done in another known viable drive.

Run the HDD manufacturer's utility on it to check it.
Isolate the drive by unplugging the other opticals
temporarily, and try to find commonality to the events
leading to corruption. Is it on a separate controller from
the chipset controller on the motherboard? if so research
that angle and check on a bios update for the controller
(motherboard bios update if controller is a board feature
rather than PCI card based).

that is a bad setup for starts you do know you only need one cdrom/dvd
drive, but that is just down to preference.

Actually it's easy to need more than one and optimal to have
more... for example,

copying disc-to-disc
games that require leaving disc in
some read better than others on different media
some write better ...

So in truth, the bad setup is one where there's only one
optical drive as there's nothing but benefits to multiple
drives... of course there's the higher cost and it uses an
extrernal bay but who doesn't have at least 2 of those?

have you tried the hdd in a different pc.
you do know when copying a cd it's easier and faster to copy it to
the hdd first

Easier?
Impossible.
Nothing's easier that only copying once.
Could be faster... are you in a hurry?
Could be a problem on old burners that don't have buffer
underrun protection/pickup feature.

 

[Peter]

OOOPS you have susbsituted a drive.... I would suspect the following

Wrong drivers loading for the mainboard
Cable/connector on the IDE channel
PSU not up to the job anymore

Have had this affect DVD use before. Had a DVD and a CD/RW and when the
PSU started to fail the first thing that wouldn't work was the DVD
drive.

You could try testing this out by just having HD on ide1 and suspect dvd
on ide2 and seeing if it works.

 

[Ed Cregger]

I don't understand what it is you think has changed in normal CD burning.

***The first situation I had was with a Dell 2.8 GHz. Computer. One by one,
the CD-ROM drives disappeared. Disappeared in the since that I was getting
messages about the drives either not being there, no drivers, or some other
lame stuff. I reloaded the Win XP (Dell's version) and it went away. The
drives still didn't work predictably, but they did work.

Then I bought an eMachines T-6000. After a few weeks, the same thing
happened to it that happened to the Dell. I then bought a new, unmangled
copy of Win XP, loaded it and the problem has disappeared altogether. I
suspect that it was the mangled proprietary copy of XP that was causing the
problem. The Dell has been out of service for a while, so I do not know if
its mangled XP will stay straight or eventually degrade to the point where
it too must be replaced.

Ever since new, neither system has handled CD's well at all. My old system
is much more straight forward (Win 98se) to burn simple CD's. When XP works,
it works fine, but that isn't often enough.

DVDs are another matter as they have a structure (menu, etc) and the video
must be of the proper format, and not just (normally) plot any old video
file on them somewhere. EZCDCreator, though, has a rather simplified way
of making a basic DVD with drag and drop onto their layout bar.


Frankly, I didn't know they ever had such a thing as I never used a
'windows provided' anything to view a DVD.

My Win 98 system would play a DVD, if you had a DVD player. Looking back on
it, the driver may have come with the burner and not been part of the
operating system. My Bad.

Ed Cregger

 

[Nel]

that is a bad setup for starts you do know you only need one cdrom/dvd
drive, but that is just down to preference.

have you tried the hdd in a different pc.
you do know when copying a cd it's easier and faster to copy it to
the hdd first

if the above components work try this
Prim-Mast 120Gig HDD
Prim-Slave 28G HDD
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW

Tried moving both HDD's onto the primary, with the new DVD on it's own on
the secondary with the same results. Every disc that is inserted - whether
it's a CDR, DVD or or even pressed CD's (installation discs etc) - shows up
as a blank CD with the "Write files to this CD" task showing on the left
hand pane of the folder.

I'm running out of ideas!!

 

[kony]

***The first situation I had was with a Dell 2.8 GHz. Computer. One by one,
the CD-ROM drives disappeared. Disappeared in the since that I was getting
messages about the drives either not being there, no drivers, or some other
lame stuff. I reloaded the Win XP (Dell's version) and it went away. The
drives still didn't work predictably, but they did work.

Are you loading 3rd party IDE drivers? If so, don't do that
for awhile, leave only MS (windows) default IDE.

If you are putting *bad* things into your drive, like
certain $ony rootkits or similar, don't do that either.

If you have children that put cheese-filled pretzels in odd
places, hide the cheese. Also small animals should not be
allowed to grow hair and all industrial spies must be
escorted off the premises.

Then I bought an eMachines T-6000. After a few weeks, the same thing
happened to it that happened to the Dell.
I then bought a new, unmangled
copy of Win XP, loaded it and the problem has disappeared altogether. I
suspect that it was the mangled proprietary copy of XP that was causing the
problem. The Dell has been out of service for a while, so I do not know if
its mangled XP will stay straight or eventually degrade to the point where
it too must be replaced.

If it's loading an IDE driver, that's changeable in Device
Manager. If you have other things installed, you'd have to
look at what, specifically that other thing is. While the
Dell boxes I've worked on loaded a lot of junk like Dell
Support-whatever and trialware, there wasn't any kind of
particularly invasive stuff, though while I"m thinking of
it, if there's some burning or other related drive device
drivers, remote those as well.

Basically the idea here is that there isn't anything the OEM
installs could be doing that can't be undone, but that only
you have the box in front of you for inspiration to find
that (thing).

Ever since new, neither system has handled CD's well at all. My old system
is much more straight forward (Win 98se) to burn simple CD's. When XP works,
it works fine, but that isn't often enough.

There was a (cosmetically disabled) feature on WMP 6.x, and
IIRC there are still some plugings around that'll add the
functionality (codec filter) for WMP with MPEG2. It's
probably beside the point though, that getting to the root
of this is best done by removing any adding "things" rather
than adding more.

My Win 98 system would play a DVD, if you had a DVD player. Looking back on
it, the driver may have come with the burner and not been part of the
operating system. My Bad.

No it needed no driver for DVDs, you just needed the DVD
software, the drive itself reads the files fine it's just
the application that has to know what to do with them.

 

[sdlomi2]

Yesterday, I re-formatted my brother's PC as it was very sluggish, wasn't
reading DVD's and had problems accessing a hard drive. The plan was to do
a new install, identify & fix all problems, then do an image of the drive
with Ghost for him to use in the future and save me hours of time!!

His system was:
Prim-Mast 28G HDD (fine)
Prim-Slave DVD-ROM (quite old - doesn't read any CDR/DVDR's)
Sec-Mast DVD+/-RW (Seemed to read original CD's & DVD's only)
Sec Slave 120Gig HDD (works for a short while, then gets corrupted
requiring re-format)

Re-installed XP & SP2, but found that the DVD drive still wasn't working
and was just showing a blank disc with whatever that was inserted - even
after checking all the cables.

Went back there today and found that he had bought a new DVDRW drive

Nel, unless his new dvdrw is an oem, it should have a cd with some
dvd-reading proggy on it--some use special versions of Nero which are
specific to that dvdrw, and applications which proggies like Nero 7.0 lack.
Install that cd, & see what happens. Try it using the 28-gig hd as master &
dvdrw as slave. Of course, be sure & set jumpers properly. HTH, s

 

[David Maynard]

***The first situation I had was with a Dell 2.8 GHz. Computer. One by one,
the CD-ROM drives disappeared. Disappeared in the since that I was getting
messages about the drives either not being there, no drivers, or some other
lame stuff. I reloaded the Win XP (Dell's version) and it went away. The
drives still didn't work predictably, but they did work.

I see. Well, driver problems isn't the same thing as burning a CD being
'different' now and, trust me, plenty of people had 'mysterious' problems
'back then' too.

Then I bought an eMachines T-6000. After a few weeks, the same thing
happened to it that happened to the Dell. I then bought a new, unmangled
copy of Win XP, loaded it and the problem has disappeared altogether. I
suspect that it was the mangled proprietary copy of XP that was causing the
problem. The Dell has been out of service for a while, so I do not know if
its mangled XP will stay straight or eventually degrade to the point where
it too must be replaced.

I don't know what the 'disappearing drive' problem is as I've never had one
do that, at least not when it wasn't a bad drive, but then I always build
my own machines and use the 'standard' O.S. distribution.

Ever since new, neither system has handled CD's well at all. My old system
is much more straight forward (Win 98se) to burn simple CD's. When XP works,
it works fine, but that isn't often enough.

As I said, I've never used anything 'Microsoft' to burn CDs anyway. I
always use something like Nero, EZCDCreator, or Fireburner, etc. so the
O.S. is of little consequence, as long as the drives don't vanish that is

My Win 98 system would play a DVD, if you had a DVD player. Looking back on
it, the driver may have come with the burner and not been part of the
operating system. My Bad.

Not drivers, per see, but the codec and smarts to handle DVD menus (find
the proper VOB, etc).