DVD Drive does not Recognise DVDs

[stuartnz]

I'm reviving this thread because it relates to my problem, although a little different. A friend has a P300 (Vista Home Premium) with a DS8A4S slimline DVD drive. It plays commercial audio CDs just fine, but does not recognise DVDs at all. By that I mean that when a DVD is put in the drive, it does not show up at all - select the drive and the message comes up "please insert a disc into drive D". Also, when I put a a CD full of MP3s that I'd burned into the drive, "Properties" reported that the disc was empty, when on my own machine (Win7 Pro 64), it correctly shows as full. I also tried a commercially produced MP3 disc, one I bought from Amazon.com, and it played just fine. There are no warnings in Device Manager, selecting Driver Update brings up a message that the driver is already up to date. That's why I haven't yet tried the regedit suggested, as the problem seems a little different. It seems to me that it is perhaps not a mechanical issue, since it does read and play some discs. Any suggestions will be very gratefully received. Thanks!

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

I have split your post from the other thread. It was over a year old and you are better with your own :)

 

There are 2 lasers in a CD - DVD Drive. One will look at CDs the other DVDs.

If the DVD laser gets damaged or is a bit out of alignment - it will not read the media.

 

Go to device manager again > right click on the drive > Uninstall.

You will need to restart.

 

Windows will detect "New" hardware and re-install the drivers.

There is an outside chance that they may be partially corrupt.