Newly installed LG DVD drive not playing DVDs

Yes, you can install it. The drive is a standard size and will fit the drive bay in your Dell. You'll just need to set the master/slave jumper to whichever your new drive will be. If you're just replacing the optical drive, or it's connected to the first plug on the data cable from the motherboard, set the jumper to master (MA). If you're installing this as a slave, connected to the middle plug on the data cable, set the jumper to slave (SL).This drive comes standard in some Dell systems and they have this user's guide which shows the connections.

You don't need anything for Windows to be able to use the drive. It's seen as a standard drive type and Windows will work with it straight away. But you'll need some kind of burning software to make CDs or DVDs. Windows does have built-in burning capability but it's pretty limited. A good free disc burning application is CDBurnerXP. There are commercial programs like Nero as well. If you want to make DVDs that you intend to play in a regular DVD player, or want to make DVDs with menus and other features like the commercial releases, you need DVD authoring software. The commercial programs with all the bells and whistles are pretty costly. DVDStyler is a free program that offers a lot of functions.

Have fun, and thanks for using Fixya!

Hi, could you let me know , the dvd drive , doesnot work at all or is it playing cds but not dvds .
Is there any error reported, when you try playing them


Thanks
Proton

You'll probably have a hard time finding a DVD burner that would fit in your laptop as it's kinda old. I would suggest checking out the external dvd burners. Here are a few to check out.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=420&name=External-CD-DVD-Drives

Hi budliteman36
Dell Dimension 2400 series will not bur DVD, see the link blow for specifications.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-2400-pentium/4507-3118_7-30824846.html?tag=mncol;rnav

You can replace the CD-RW drive with a DVD writer. Here is a list od DVD-R-RW writers.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=89&name=DVD-Burners&

Cheers!
Mike

It shouldn't be a driver issue. DVD drives are natively supported by XP. What software do you have installed for playing DVD'? Windows Media Player 11 would be excellent, and it's free from Microsoft. PowerDVD and WinDVD are also good, but you have to buy them.

yes you should be able to play CD on the DVD reader.
Dimension 2400 have drive slide mounted on the side of the hard drive, cd drive and floppy. they are different for each device. you need the 2 side mount for the dvd. in order to mount them in the Dell.
the drive is inserted from the inside of the box toward the front. The front panel will prevent the device from pop out.
yes, 3 party DVD, CD drive will be shorter and fater that what Dell porvide, but it will work, al long as the opening is accessable.
get the HP DVD driver.

Hello jpptalbot.
You can install the CDRW on a free IDE channel (which is not being used by any devices) and there is no need of using a jumper in this case.

Hi,
are you trying to play DVDs from a different region ?
PC DVD Drives, are region set to the computer, if you have a region 1 dvd drive, trying to play region 2 dvds et,c. it won,t let you. theres a couple of ways around this. go to Afterdawn ( on the web ) and download a region free dvd device.
Solution 2. try to obtain any updates or re-install windows media player. suggest player version 9 or above.

Mike @ compurepair.

p.s finally is to check that your drive, indeed supports DVD Or certain types of dvd media. i.e DVD+ Or DVD- some only support One type.

maybe the carbons of the DVD reader are getting too old and it doesn't rotate as fast as how it was burned so it cannot read the movies..
buying a new one will fix your problem..
the problems of nano technology is that things are too small to be fixed by humans...

maybe you could play those games because they were old, and since most of the stuff its installed in your computer it doesn't need much from the DVD unit..

Have you tried several DVDs? Maybe it doesn't read some types of DVDs.