DVDs not showing up

[MobileTechie]

I have a customer's PBell laptop in and one complaint was a non-working DVD drive - it keeps popping out whilst playing CDs etc.

I got a replacement (used) and this plays CDs fine but it/Windows doesn't appear to see DVDs. I can put a film DVD and the My Computer doesn't register a disk in the drive. Put a CD in and it offers to play it.

They have PowerDVD installed and I've installed VLC for good measure. Neither see DVDs.

Any ideas other than a duff drive?

 

[red12049]

I have a customer's PBell laptop in and one complaint was a non-working DVD drive - it keeps popping out whilst playing CDs etc.

I got a replacement (used) and this plays CDs fine but it/Windows doesn't appear to see DVDs. I can put a film DVD and the My Computer doesn't register a disk in the drive. Put a CD in and it offers to play it.

They have PowerDVD installed and I've installed VLC for good measure. Neither see DVDs.

Any ideas other than a duff drive?

First, the obvious that we all can miss. Does the paper label (not just the front plate) on the top/back of the unit actually say anything about DVD?

Rick

 

[MobileTechie]

Yes....funnily enough I am capable of knowing whether it's a DVD drive or not!

Admittedly I didn't provide enough info to begin with. Anyway, I've since tried booting to a bootable DVD and it works which appear to rule out the the drive being bad.

As I understand it VLC will read DVDs with no need for 3rd party codecs so it doesn't seem to be a codec thing.

 

[tarik]

Yes....funnily enough I am capable of knowing whether it's a DVD drive or not!

Admittedly I didn't provide enough info to begin with. Anyway, I've since tried booting to a bootable DVD and it works which appear to rule out the the drive being bad.

As I understand it VLC will read DVDs with no need for 3rd party codecs so it doesn't seem to be a codec thing.

yes thats correct. even if you didnt have either installed you would still be able to explore the diss and folders even if you couldnt run anything on it. what bootable dvd did you try? have you tried exploring that bootable dvd in windows? is the device shown in device manager working correctly etc?

 

[AdamsAPlus]

You normally don't have to worry about this we DVD/CD Rom Drives but double check the drivers. See if you can get updated drivers for your drive.

Also, check the BIOS and see if it's coming up as a DVD. I don't believe this is the case because it is able to read some DVDs. But I feel it's worth a look.

 

[iisjman07]

run the upper/lower filter fix?

 

[Styxbound]

I had a helluva time a while back with an hp which would only play maybe one out of five movies. After changing dvd players, movie playing systems and finally the hard drive got it to play most movies, but never all. So I'd suggest trying some different dvds.

 

[Knightsman]

Check the chipset drivers.

Also a nice basic .exe program for dvs is 321 Player (media player classic)

 

[mkeathley]

It may seem odd. But some older drives only play DVD+R or DVD-R disc.
So check your disc, maybe try one of each.

Double the chances of that being the problem if its a HP.....