is my Drive a dvd or cd Drive

AustinByrnes · 03-04-2012 10:29PM #1

friend of mine bought a laptop off ebay laptop works a treat but wont play dvds,

my question is this from the screenshots below is the drive actually a dvd drive or just a cd rom drive.

it plays a music cd but wont read a dvd at all.

please see pics attached.

_AVALANCHE_ · 03-04-2012 11:25PM

What I always do in this case is install imgburn (Mirror 7), click the "write image file to disc" box-->Tools-->Drive-->Capabilities-->TA DA, whatever boxes are ticked, the drive will do.

FanadMan · 03-04-2012 11:34PM

AustinByrnes wrote: »

friend of mine bought a laptop off ebay laptop works a treat but wont play dvds,

my question is this from the screenshots below is the drive actually a dvd drive or just a cd rom drive.

it plays a music cd but wont read a dvd at all.

please see pics attached.

Look on the drive itself.....does it say Compact Disc Recordable/DVD Rom/DVD+Rewritable? Should be easy enough to check just by looking at it.....unless the seller stuck a different cover on the drive.

AustinByrnes · 03-04-2012 11:45PM

there is no logos on the drive its blank. hence my confusion.

03-04-2012 11:49PM

It's definitely meant to be a DVD drive. The red laser could be faulty, I've seen it happen.

fasttalkerchat · 03-04-2012 11:52PM

Just a stab in the dark but have you tried a driver update? Possibly you're using DVD drivers for a CD drive or vice-versa.

AustinByrnes · 04-04-2012 12:06AM

i went into device manager highlighted the driver and did update driver the result i got back was this.

see pic

_AVALANCHE_ · 04-04-2012 12:11AM

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

What I always do in this case is install imgburn (Mirror 7), click the "write image file to disc" box-->Tools-->Drive-->Capabilities-->TA DA, whatever boxes are ticked, the drive will do.

ahem^^^^^^^

fasttalkerchat · 04-04-2012 12:16AM

The only other thing I can think of is to remove the drive. If you tell me the model of the laptop I'll tell you how.

When you remove the drive there should be a sticker on the top. Even a serial number could be enough.

AustinByrnes · 04-04-2012 12:21AM

laptop is on Zoostorm Kangaroo Vme50(i know not the most popular brand name) i will take the drive out and check it.

FanadMan · 04-04-2012 03:36AM

You try checking the bios? - should show it in there.

jay-me · 04-04-2012 04:30AM

FanadMan wrote: »

You try checking the bios? - should show it in there.

Windows doesnt have software to read dvds off the bat download vlc media player and you are done

Echoes675 · 04-04-2012 09:10AM

Have you installed the correct codecs? DVDs require MPEG2 decoding. There are loads of free codec packs out there. I use the k-lite codec pack. It supports loads of different audio and video.

There are no seperate "drivers" between a cd or dvd drive or a blu ray drive etc.... The recognition of the drive happens at a BIOS / hardware (controller on the motherboard) level, just like adding additional RAM or HDD or a floppy drive to a PC. The O/S detects the drive automatically. As you can see in device manager it has correctly detected a DS8A4S drive, which happens to be a DVD-RW.

is my Drive a dvd or cd Drive

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