DVD drive wont read DVD's but can read dtat and music cd's

S

Steve

Hi,

This one is kicking my but. Here's the story. Been running Windows XP Pro
since release. Have had no problems with any of my hardware or software. I'm
the type who dloads a lot of software for evaluation and I typically
uninstall most of what I try. As you can imaging, this leaves the registry
quite buggered. Heck, Real player left 132 strings in the registry after the
uninstall. Anyway, since its been quite awhile since my last install and I
was starting to get some weird error messages I decided to wipe the drive
and reinstall. The install went without a hitch and I was back up and
running within an hour. The only thing I notice was about a week later I
tried to watch a severely scratched DVD that wouldnt play on my home unit.
This has never presented a problem before. As you will likely tell me, of
course I checked several other DVD's in the drive and not a single one
worked. I checked several music cd's and they were fine. I checked several
game cd's without a problem, even my cd-r's and rw worked fine. Only when
inserting a DVD, the drive light will flicker for a minute or 2 and then
nothing. If I go into windows explorer to look at the file structure, I am
asked to insert a cd even though it is in. I don't even hear the drive
spinnning up as it does for other cd's. I even tried removing the drive,
rebooting, shutting down, reinstalling the drive and then rebooting. I have
tried installing the ASPI layer from Adaptec with no luck. All my drives are
showing as DMA enabled.

Here are the specs but I doubt they mean anything

Athlon 1800+ XP running at 1.4 ghz
ASUS A7A-266 mobo
Windows XP Pro with all the hot fixes
Nero 6.0 burning software.

Next thought is to reinstall Nero thinking maybe it corrupted something.
Then maybe reinstall the OS and the last resort is to buy a new drive as
they are a dime a dozen. I just really want to figure this out for the
future. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
Steve
 
A

Alex Nichol

Steve said:
Anyway, since its been quite awhile since my last install and I
was starting to get some weird error messages I decided to wipe the drive
and reinstall. The install went without a hitch and I was back up and
running within an hour. The only thing I notice was about a week later I
tried to watch a severely scratched DVD that wouldnt play on my home unit.
This has never presented a problem before. As you will likely tell me, of
course I checked several other DVD's in the drive and not a single one
worked

By which I take it you mean DVD movies? A clean instal of XP does not
include a DVD movie cosec: you have to install one. Either by
installing a third party player that you already had, or by buying a
codec from one of the makers of those. You presumably had something of
the sort that you installed first time - reinstall it
 
S

Steve

I have installed all of the codecs that I had previously. Its not the
software. Its windows as the drive will not even recognize a DVD disc. This
is either a drive fault (I don't think so since it will read regular data
and music cd's) or a Windows fault. The codec has nothing to do with windows
accessing the DVD. It will only prevent the software DVD player from
displaying the video or audio. But I appreciate your input.
 
C

CS

Hi Steve:

Does XP recognize the drive as a DVD type? Open device manager
through control panel and check.... Also make sure the correct
driver is installed. I'm thinking if XP only "sees" the drive as a
CD Rom type, it will not recognize DVDs placed in the drive while at
the same time it will recognize data and music cds.

You may have to remove the drive from device manager and try
re-installing. Good luck.

Regards.
I have installed all of the codecs that I had previously. Its not the
software. Its windows as the drive will not even recognize a DVD disc. This
is either a drive fault (I don't think so since it will read regular data
and music cd's) or a Windows fault. The codec has nothing to do with windows
accessing the DVD. It will only prevent the software DVD player from
displaying the video or audio. But I appreciate your input.
 
S

Steve

Yes, windows recognizes it as a 12X DVD-Rom. I have tried your suggestion to
remove the drive, the drivers (Windows XP installed driver)and reboot
without it then reinstalling it later but still no luck. Device manager says
it is working properly and the troubleshooter ran through without a
successful fix. I have also tried installing the ASPI layer from Adaptec but
that didn't work. I have all my drives set to DMA. I was going to swap it
out on the ribbon making it the master and the CR-RW the slave but I havent
gotten to it yet. I don't want to put in on the same cable as my hard drive.
This one is really kicking my A@@. Thanks for any other tips that anyone
might provide.



CS said:
Hi Steve:

Does XP recognize the drive as a DVD type? Open device manager
through control panel and check.... Also make sure the correct
driver is installed. I'm thinking if XP only "sees" the drive as a
CD Rom type, it will not recognize DVDs placed in the drive while at
the same time it will recognize data and music cds.

You may have to remove the drive from device manager and try
re-installing. Good luck.

Regards.
 
C

CS

Open Device Manager and right click on your DVD drive. Select
properties. Click the region tab and see if a region has been
selected. Trying to play DVDs from a region other than where you
purchased the DVD player can also cause the problem you're
experiencing. Other than that, I'm out of ideas. It may in fact be
a hardware problem but that does seem unlikely since it can "see"
other types of media.
Yes, windows recognizes it as a 12X DVD-Rom. I have tried your suggestion to
remove the drive, the drivers (Windows XP installed driver)and reboot
without it then reinstalling it later but still no luck. Device manager says
it is working properly and the troubleshooter ran through without a
successful fix. I have also tried installing the ASPI layer from Adaptec but
that didn't work. I have all my drives set to DMA. I was going to swap it
out on the ribbon making it the master and the CR-RW the slave but I havent
gotten to it yet. I don't want to put in on the same cable as my hard drive.
This one is really kicking my A@@. Thanks for any other tips that anyone
might provide.
 
I

Iria

I've got the same problem.

Intel P4 1.8Ghz
Win XP Pro with all fixes
Nero 5.0
LG Combo CDR/DVD rom drive

It burns CDs, reads CDs, but it does not recognize any (original) DVDs.
The same thing happens to me, I put the DVD in the drive, the light
flickers and the DVD whirrs, then nothing happens. I use Windows Explorer
and click on my DVD and WinXP tells me there is no disc in the drive. The
DVDs play in a regular DVD player. I've tried cleaning the drive but that
didn't help. I don't know when started though, it's been a long time since
I've wanted to watch a DVD on my computer.

The only info I could find was this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309321

I don't feel like installing a different OS to see if that solves the
problem.
 
S

Steve

I have checked that also. No luck. Bummer

CS said:
Open Device Manager and right click on your DVD drive. Select
properties. Click the region tab and see if a region has been
selected. Trying to play DVDs from a region other than where you
purchased the DVD player can also cause the problem you're
experiencing. Other than that, I'm out of ideas. It may in fact be
a hardware problem but that does seem unlikely since it can "see"
other types of media.
 
N

nick loop

I have a slot dvd player. Stopped playing recent Original rental
dvd's.
Plays fine all other media.
The guy from the video store told me since 2002 most DVD's are locked
here in Europe. PS2 does not play them either.They keep spinning
forever.
They play fine on any desktop DVD player...
 

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