Dvd Burner Problem

Iceman_5000

I have a DVD-RW drive on my computer but recently it has been acting up. Now it will not read any type of media disk that i insert into it, even a normal cd. I can also double click on the icon for the drive and it will let me into it showing an empty file, i say this because my cd drive will not let me into yet, it will say please insert a disk but my dvd burner drive says nothing. Any ideas on what the problem could be?

Thanks

8T8

So it's not reading factory pressed or writable DVD & CD's, unfortunately this is one of those hard to nail down problems but are oh so common.

1) The drive is defective nothing you can do just replace it.

2) Try removing the drive from the device manager and let windows reinstall it.

3) Change the IDE cable for the drive and update the drives firmware.

4) Possible software conflict, install anything recently like IDE drivers or packet based writing software.

5) Remove the drive from the PC and test it in a friends if the problem persists you know its a goner.

jor el

My brother's laptop DVD was doing the same recently, plus loads of other problems. Did a fresh install of Windows with SP2 and all is working well again. If you've had Windows on for a long time it may just be borked, I find that I need to re-install every year or so to keep things running smoothly.

If you can check the drine in another PC that would tell you if it is the problem or not.

Iceman_5000

Well its just after reading a dvd there, but it dosn't seem to be able to pick up audio cds and blank dvds. I have had the computer about a year and a bit.

8T8

Yeah I have a drive with similar problems in front of me right now a NEC ND6550 inside a Dell Inspiron laptop just stopped reading writable media but it will still read factory pressed DVDs.

I removed it from the laptop and plugged it into a PC and the problems still occur on a box with nothing installed bar the OS itself, nothing I can do but replace it.

homerjay2005

what drive is it? if its the one that i think it is, if you have done the available firmware update and it still does not work, then it will ahve to be replaced. if your lucky, it may be replaced in warranty, as this could be a known issue

slave1

I had this problem a year or so ago with a NEC drive, it was perfect for the guts of a year and then what you describe, returned it for a replacement, since then I've steered clear of NEC preferring Pioneer

Iceman_5000

Its a Philips came with my dell D8400. I have it 1 year and 2 months. Dells are 1 year right? They would hardly take it now? I have uninstalled the driver and reinstalled it with no progress. I have also looked for updates with no sucess.

8T8

What make Philips is it ?

You can cross flash those to BenQ drives they use the same chip, hell its worth a shot at this stage you got nothing to lose.

Iceman_5000

What is cross flash? And what would be the advantage of it?

8T8

A cross flash is when you use the firmware from drive y on drive x. BenQ and Philips operate a joint venture producing optical drives based of the same chipsets and a common firmware.

However BenQ is much more involved in the retail market than Philips & as such they release firmware updates more frequently, on top of that Philips do not often release firmware updates for OEM drives even though a firmware update may have been released for the Philips retail counterpart.

It won’t break the drive cross-flashing (assuming you know what your flashing to) and you never know it might bring the drive back to life.

Use VSO Inspector to display the model number of the drive if you are not sure what it is.

Iceman_5000

Its working! It came back to life after i gave it a firmware upadete! nice one Thanks for the help all.