CD/DVD Drive Problems!!!!

Hello!

Yesterday i wanted to transfer some homemade film about my son on to my computer and my drive doesnt regonize the disc. So i started to investigate. It wont play or regonize any of my DVD:s that i have tried. I wont burn to CD or DVD. I reinstalled the driver, but that didnt help. On the device manager it says device working properly. I reinstalled the software that came with the computer. It does play cdroms and autorun works. Can anyone help? Or could you tell me a place i could get some help?

My computer is Dell Dimension5150, Windows XP SP2 up to date. I have been to Dell site but with no luck. I have Online-Armor AV +, EQsecure, Winpatrol and Superantispyware active. I have Nero 6 and Roxio Media creator suite 10. Also i have some Sonic stuff aswell which were required

Thank you!

BH

 

Sounds to me like a faulty drive. My advice is to call Dell support.

 

Try:
-Uninstall Secondary IDE channel from device manager. Reboot and it will be reinstalled.
-Check at Sec IDE channel if the drive is in Ultra DMA mode. If it is, try setting in PIO mode and see if it works.
- Try changing IDE cable (once a "bad" IDE cable was causing me havoc).

If all of this fails, maybe the drive is dead. Thankully, they are cheap nowdays and you can replace it for say 20 $.

 

Hello and thank you for your replys!

Thanks for the advice. I bit reluctant to call Dell support last time i did...let say it was very bad experience.

I just tired with external harddrive, but my computer sees the drive but wont play the dvd or burn.

I tried again to burn on to my CD/DVD drive and i got this message:

and Nero says this:



I havent tried that IDE just yet.

 

Ah, i see the burner is the LG 4164B. I had the 4163B. I also had the LG 8163 and 8164 readers.

Take my advice. Next time, buy another brand. They are quite picky drives. Quite, but picky. Just to make you understand... One day,out of the blue, i couldn't boot to Windows anymore. But i could, if instead of the LG drives, i put a Toshiba one. The LGs, for some reason, got "uncomfortable" with the IDE cable on which they were working fine for months. So they were blocking the entire boot. While the Toshiba didn't. When i changed the IDE cable, the LGs were happy campers once again. It was the weirdest thing i had ever seen. And the cable was quite new too! It was driving me mad. I thought i had tried everything and thought the problem was that the motherboard's secondary IDE controller was fried. Instead, it was the damn IDE cable that wasn't likable to the LGs...

Also trying disabling/uninstalling your HIPS... Just in case.

 

Well it was a Dell machine so i didnt have much choice when it end of the day it came down to money. How do you know it is a LG burner? Would the IDE cable change work or what should i do?

I have already done that. No luck!

 

I understand. When you buy a pre-assembled PC, you get it "as it is". My first PC was like that too and soon i discovered the motherboard wasn't helping much upgrading, cause they have used a cheap one... Since then, i learnt to build my own PCs. At least i know what i put inside.

I know it is LG, because of the HL-DT-ST code, which is used for LGs... I had plenty of them, so i know...

I don't know if the IDE cable will work. Unfortunately, with stuff like that, it's "try and see". I have spare parts at home, so that i can change all parts one by one until i find the culprit. That's what they do at PC assistance shops too. It could be that the IDE sec channel drivers got corrupted, it could be the HIPS broke something when installing, could be the IDE cable that is "old" and not working properly, could be a Master-slave conflict between 2 IDE devices, could be that the drive is dying, could be the motherboard's secondary IDE controller is dying... Only by trying you can solve this. You could also go to device manager, right click the device and select "troubleshoot" and see what mama MS has to say. Generally, if software solutions fail, you need to get "your hands dirty", meaning, you must take your screwdriver at hand and open the cabinet.

Also, try cleaning the drive. There are special cleaning CDs that you can put inside, in case too much dust is sitting on the laser emitter and is causing the drive to have reading-burning trouble. Or you can try with compressed air can to blow inside from a distance.

May Dell (God) help you If you don't find what's wrong, a new burner is at about 35-40$ and a reader at 20$.

 

Check this out, just to have an idea that unfortunately, "long distance" troubleshooting, is impossible with these things.


http://www.fonerbooks.com/ide_hd.htm

EDIT: Corrected the link above.

 

I really appreciate what you are doing. Well i am not very handy when it comes to the fiddling inside the machine.....well i have to see what i can do.

If i replace it, does the new drive come with all the necessary software?

I would like to rule out software/driver problem first before opening the box!

 

To install a new internal IDE burner, you don't need particular drivers or software. Windows has its own drivers. All you have to do is plug it correctly.
- You must select on the rear side of the drive, using a jumper, if you want to set it as Master or slave. If it is the only drive on the same cable, you set it as Master. The position of the jumper is written on the drive itself. MA (= Master) , SL (Slave), CS (Cable Select). If you have 2 drives on the same cable, one must be Master and the other slave, otherwise they will be in conflict.
Once you set the jumper, you need to connect the IDE ribbon cable to the rear of the drive (red cable goes to the extreme right) and the power cable. That's all.

Just make sure you don't buy a SATA burner, because it requires SATA port and cable, which i don't know if your motherboard has. Buy an IDE one.

Of course then you need a software for burning, your current one, could work or could need updating. But there are so many free burning programs nowdays. If you buy a boxed burner, it will come with burning software too. If you buy an OEM burner, it won't have it, but will be a little cheaper.

Here's a visual guide too. It's very easy, really.

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/installing_cd_recorder.htm

Yes, this is reasonable.

 

Thank you for your help!

Well putting a new one in looks easy enough. If i got this right all you new for CD/DVD drive to work is drivers and software that can burn...correct? If that is the case i dont think this is a software issues though.

I also tried external cd/dvd drive and my computer sees that drive but would not regonize the dvd or play it...would this be software issues?

I am sorry about all this questions. i am just wondering what i should do next.

 

Hi Bio Hazard
this used to happen with me sometimes on XP, if it's the same thing this Reg. fix will fix it, it's a know problem to do with Roxio although I've had NTI do the same thing. I'll paste the whole article I have about it below, hope it works.

 

Yes and you don't need to install the drivers yourself, Windows will do that automatically. Then all you need is burning software.

However, since the external DVD doesn't work either, i would think that the problem is software conflict. Something in Windows went bad... If you don't find the cause, a... format should be healthy.

 

A couple of rather obvious points.

Have you tried another DVD disk ,especially if its R/W.

Have you tried another app other than Nero?

Suggest you try this simple freebie here.

I had a similar recent experience and it was a case of a software problem/bad DVD disk.

Changing to another software burner app and to a never tried DVD disk worked.

edit;ISO images especially can be burn sensitive and cant use R/W in my experience.
However it may be worth trying to save your compilation as an ISO image and then burning

 

Update:

I can burn CD:s now. I too tired to start seeing what i can do about DVD for now!

Thank you everyone!

 

Hello!

Update: I have been trying to get this sorted. SO far i can Use my CD/DVD drive to use CD-roms. I can burn, rip and play CDs through this drive. I can not use it to burn or play DVDs.

I have FDISR installed and i have one snapshot which i made when i reinstalled Windows so i am going to see if i can use it on that snapshot to rule out any software problem. If it doesnt work, could it be that it is a hardware problem?

 

I think it is odd that it can burn CDs but not DVDs... Try the snapshot and different media brand/burning speed. If all fails, maybe it's hardware problem...

 

Thats why i am so confused . I really dont know what to think. I am going to put Nero 6 on which i got with my videocamera.

 

I have system restore off because of FDISR.

 

Coupla simple things that you have probably already tried.

Right click the drive icon - properties - Recording tab - Tick -> Enable CD recording.

Hardware tab - highlight drive - properties - dvd region tab and select the correct region.

Check in services that the IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service is at least set to manual and Shell Hardware Detection is set to auto and started.

 

All are as you described!

Also i tried in FDISR snapshot and it doesnt regonize any DVDs. Not single one. I have also opened the box and checked all the connections. Anyway....i put my hands up and give up. I am going to buy a new drive.

THANK YOU everyone for their help.

 

Yep, when the laser in the drives quits it won't recognize any disk inserted at all. It does sound like a failed drive.

You can get one cheap here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151155

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118003

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135157 (recommended)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827248009

 

I use newegg too, but unfortunately they only ship in the US and to Puerto Rico.

 

Would this motherboard support this CD/DVD drive?


Also does it make a difference when using CD/DVD drive if the Intel graphics media accelerator 950 is disabled?

I also have been going through Dell forum and lot of people have problems with this CD/DVD drive...it is not very encouraging!