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Refuses to read DVD media (commercial movie discs)
Fully functional dealing with cd media, tried DVD media for the first time (movies), drive cant see discs, used Nero showtime dvd player(bundled with drive) have tried windvd, powerdvd, and half a dozen lesser known dvd player software(only one player installed at a time to avoid conflicts) all said "insert disc". Regional setting on 1(US), DMA/UDMA enabled. digital audio enabled. uninstalled/reinstalled drive. Ran Sony's drive diagnostic software and passed, have drive connected solo to secondary ide channel via 80pin cable and have tried 40 pin. Drives firmware updated. system: AMD athlonXP 3000, 1GB memory, Vid card Radeon x700 258mb, W2K SP4. I'm a pc tech and have spent 2 solid days searching forums, faqs, support sites and no joy. What am I missing?
could be, but same problem on 2 different units, on 2 other different computerscould be, but same problem on 2 different units, on 2 other different computers
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Is the movie a store purchased movie or is it a movie that someone copied and gave to you? Computers sometimes have problems reading or playing a dvd or cd that someone else made and gave to you. Try a store purchased music cd or store purchased movie dvd and see if the player plays it.
1. Go to the Dell.com support site and be sure you have the latest updates for your computer's operating system and the DVD drive, especially the DVD drive's drivers BIOS.
2. Make sure you have the software to play the movie, like Sonic, Windows Media Player, Power DVD, Quicktime, etc. and be sure they are the latest versions.
3. Depending on the movie format, not all DVD drives will play all DVDs. The most common discs are DVD-R and DVD+R and file types like *.avi, *.mpeg, *.mp4, *.mov and then commercial formats. Also try the movie in another machine or DVD player and see what happens.
This can be caused by dirt on the laser lens, or a posible malfunction of it. CD/DVD lenses tend to loose power over time, when that happens, they cant read the discs anymore and you have to get them replaced.
But before you go that way, try cleaning the DVD drive with a disc cleaner, if problem persists, try to purchase a new, and compatible, dvd drive and change it yourself if you can, or take it to repair.
If your Drive is a CD-Rome drive, surely it cant, for the drive cant read dvd disc.
Replace the drive of yours with DVD-Rom or DVD-RW in order to play dvd disc, DVD-RW simply has the added capablity to burn on DVD discs
The 4600 has PowerDVD to play DVDs (You should have the software CD to install it on the 3000) DVD burning software would be Roxio/Sonic, and you should have that CD too.
If you don't have the CDs, then try download.com to download Free player software and Burning software
should i assume that the drive work previouly with com dvd? my annlysis of this problem is that the dvdrom is not able to read the format the dvd is in. the format of the hard drive does not determine the ability to read or not read a dvd. that is the job of the optical disc.so dont worry about the format that is in.ok. the other aspect of the ability to read dvd is the software. windows media player and other that are of age has a inability to play some new format dvd. best bet install the newest version of power dvd put the disc and check should start automat pending setting you may need to go to my computer and double clickon the romdrive. let me know.
if you have had two drives with the same problem i would check the ide cable and swap to another one if you have a master and slave twin connector ide cable, or even try the dvd rom on the same ide cable as the hard drive as you know that that ide connector and cable is working, unless you have a SATA hard drive in which case you won't be able to; but will still have a spare ide channel connector to try the drive on.
Hi, first of all, I'd check if you have the problem with CD/DVDs burned (written on a CD/DVD writer) or you have it also with original CD/DVDs,
which would be weird.
Depending on your finding to the above point I'd do one thing or another, but to me does not look like a driver problem. I'd check with Toshiba support if there's a new firmware for your drive, this does improve the media the device can read and correct problems like the one you mention.
To know the fimware version you're using, open device manager and go find your drive, right click on it and choose details tab. Normally the firmware revision is the number at the end of the instance.
Good luck mate !
could be, but same problem on 2 different units, on 2 other different computers
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