I have a perplexing DVD recognition problem with my Compaq Presario R1520NX with Windows XP Home Edition. The CD/DVD RW drive is an HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GCA-4164B. I?ve used the drive for CD/DVD read and write operations for over a year. Very recently the system ceased recognizing DVD?s when they were loaded but still recognized CD?s and could write to CD?s. I tried many of the usual ploys unsucessfully, including System Restore to an earlier date. I finally compared the behavior of the system with one of my DVD?s which is in excellent condition and a copy of it. The system recognized the copy and within 25 seconds of loading displayed a typical dialog box with choices for the DVD including Intervideo viewer. When I tried the same with the original DVD, the drive light went off at 25 sec without recognition of the disk.
I next tried a diagnostic startup which resulted in the same result for the DVD copy in contrast to the DVD original which continued to spin for several minutes without recognition until terminated. Next I established that a clean boot per MS instructions did not solve the problem. The DVD copy was recognized in 25 sec. but only as the file folders in the drive whereas the DVD displayed a 25 sec. on time for reading but registered no media files on the drive.
I don?t know where to go from here! Your thoughts would be appreciated.
I don't know about your system, but on my laptop {Dell Latitude D400} the same thing happened, It can read DVD+RW's but is refusing to read DVD-R's, the light will flash for about 15secs and then stop. I went to "My Computer > DVD-Drive" but it tells me that I have no disc in there. The options you can try are.
Update your DVD drives Firmware {Manufactures site} Try system restore Get a new DVD-RW drive Buy a new computer
Of course, I tried updating my drives firmware, but to no success. Hope it helps.
I am not sure of your specific drives, but remember that DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW are all completely different things. I have two DVD players and my older one does not recognize certain DVD's.
