DVD/RW drive being recognised as a CD-ROM

[maniac]

As the title says, I have some laptops in the school where the DVD-RW drive in them is recognised by Windows XP as a CD-ROM drive. Because of this it won't play DVDs properly. It still reads the disc, but insted of recognising it as a DVD movie, it just lists the folders on the disc instead and just makes the whole machine lag badly.

 

Causing me a big headache at the moment, anyone got any ideas? Googling has produced no conclusive solution although several people have reported the same issues.

 

Regards

 

Mike.

[Guest richard_s]

Got a Toshiba Laptop on the bench with the same problem but have no luck with it as of yet

[mac_shinobi]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47691-hl-dt-st-dvdram-gh22ns40-vanished.html

 

upper and lower filters

 

Then install latest chipset / sata / ide drivers then from there get vlc or windows media player classic and try again

[Guest richard_s]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47691-hl-dt-st-dvdram-gh22ns40-vanished.html

 

upper and lower filters

 

Then install latest chipset / sata / ide drivers then from there get vlc or windows media player classic and try again

 

That is a different issue to the one I am having. The drive is there but it will not read DVD movies, it sees the file structure just fine. It reads data disc's with no issues but won't burn them.

[mac_shinobi]

That is a different issue to the one I am having. The drive is there but it will not read DVD movies, it sees the file structure just fine. It reads data disc's with no issues but won't burn them.

 

I would un install all burning software ( what burning application(s) are you using or trying to use ? )

 

Then do the above and then try and burn or playback a movie.

 

With ref to burning may be worth while installing latest adaptec aspi drivers

 

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspi[/ame]

 

and trying burning software again.

 

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/downloads/ms/ms_win_xp?productId=ASPI-4.70&dn=Windows+ASPI+Package

Edited February 9, 2010 by mac_shinobi

[Guest richard_s]

There is no burning software installed apart from XP's built in software.

[mac_shinobi]

There is no burning software installed apart from XP's built in software.

 

try dedicated burning software ie nero or xp burning se ( CDBurnerXP: Introduction and News )

 

that or deep burner and is it still the same ?

 

Im not keen on letting windows do the burning side of things

Edited February 9, 2010 by mac_shinobi

[FN-GM]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47691-hl-dt-st-dvdram-gh22ns40-vanished.html

 

 

I would still try this. To me it sounds like a driver issue. The other poster also had driver issues so that might sort it.

[Craggus2000]

As the title says, I have some laptops in the school where the DVD-RW drive in them is recognised by Windows XP as a CD-ROM drive. Because of this it won't play DVDs properly. It still reads the disc, but insted of recognising it as a DVD movie, it just lists the folders on the disc instead and just makes the whole machine lag badly.

 

Causing me a big headache at the moment, anyone got any ideas? Googling has produced no conclusive solution although several people have reported the same issues.

 

Regards

 

Mike.

 

I could be barking up the wrong bush here , but I vaguely recall having an issue similar to this, and it was todo with the mode that the ide channel was in.

See if it is set to PIO and change to UDMA 5 or the like. That should sort your lag if nothing else.

[mac_shinobi]

I could be barking up the wrong bush here , but I vaguely recall having an issue similar to this, and it was todo with the mode that the ide channel was in.

See if it is set to PIO and change to UDMA 5 or the like. That should sort your lag if nothing else.

 

If you go into device manager and go to the primary and secondary ide controllers then you can go to the advanced settings and make sure its set to use DMA or UDMA as apposed to pio

 

Enable DMA mode in Windows XP

[maniac]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47691-hl-dt-st-dvdram-gh22ns40-vanished.html

 

upper and lower filters

 

Then install latest chipset / sata / ide drivers then from there get vlc or windows media player classic and try again

 

Well tried this, and it didn't work - was no reference to upper or lower filters in that registry key anywhere

 

further investigation and I discovered it only complains with DVD movies, when you first start the machine it says DVD RAM drive, but as soon as you put a DVD film in, it complains like hell, won't play it properly and when you eject the disc it says CD-ROM drive after that - very odd.

 

I then found an updated firmware for the DVD drive on Dells site which I downloaded and applied - still no change

 

Then I looked for an updated chipset driver, we already have the latest one but just incase I re-installed it and deleted the hardware again so it re-installed - no change.

 

@Craggus2000 - I'll try that tomorrow - hadn't thought of doing that so we'll see if it makes any difference.

 

Mike.

[mac_shinobi]

I would still try this. To me it sounds like a driver issue. The other poster also had driver issues so that might sort it.

 

i agree though to remove upper and lower filters as per the prior thread and rebbot obviously then install latest drivers relating to chipset so inc sata and or ide and then try again with either burning software as I dont trust the intergrated windows xp burning or with video playback software ie vlc media player or windows media player classic.

[mac_shinobi]

Well tried this, and it didn't work - was no reference to upper or lower filters in that registry key anywhere

 

further investigation and I discovered it only complains with DVD movies, when you first start the machine it says DVD RAM drive, but as soon as you put a DVD film in, it complains like hell, won't play it properly and when you eject the disc it says CD-ROM drive after that - very odd.

 

I then found an updated firmware for the DVD drive on Dells site which I downloaded and applied - still no change

 

Then I looked for an updated chipset driver, we already have the latest one but just incase I re-installed it and deleted the hardware again so it re-installed - no change.

 

@Craggus2000 - I'll try that tomorrow - hadn't thought of doing that so we'll see if it makes any difference.

 

Mike.

 

Get the nero info tool utility ( free ) and run that - should tell you what formats the drive supports

 

Nero - Tools & Utilities

 

seeing as its reporting as a dvd ram drive - what player are you using to try and play the dvd videos ?

[maniac]

Get the nero info tool utility ( free ) and run that - should tell you what formats the drive supports

 

Nero - Tools & Utilities

 

seeing as its reporting as a dvd ram drive - what player are you using to try and play the dvd videos ?

 

Media player won't play them, and VLC will play them, but only if you open the software and force it to open the disc and it takes a long time to do this. There's no right hand click options for playing the disc like there's should be and no automatic popup 'Play with . . . ' dialogue which is what I rely on coming up for DVDs as that's how we tell the staff to play them. It just doesn't recognise it as a DVD movie in windows, just reads it as a normal data disc.

 

Mike.

[mac_shinobi]

with no discs inserted into the laptop and the drive closed if you go to the properties of the drive I think you should have an option there to configure how you want it to react when a dvd movie or audio disc(s) are inserted into the drive and you should be able to get it to prompt the user to play with media player x, y or z or w/e so they can select vlc or power dvd or w/e - have you got a laptop of the same make / model with a different dvd drive ( whether dvd rom or dvd rw or w/e )

 

edited

 

If you dont have a dvd decoder installed ( these are normally installed when you install dvd software players such as win dvd / power dvd ) then normal windows media player can't playback dvd's where as vlc / windows media player classic etc already have one inbuilt ( although am not sure to the legality of using these across a school due to the use of libdvdcss or the likes )

 

http://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

 

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/howto-22.html

 

1. Select Start > Run
   
2. Enter cmd in the Open box, and click OK
   
3. Type dvdupgrd /detect and press Enter
   
4. A Windows dialog box will open with identifying information about the installed software. If No decoders found is displayed, no decoder is installed
   

Edited February 9, 2010 by mac_shinobi

[maniac]

with no discs inserted into the laptop and the drive closed if you go to the properties of the drive I think you should have an option there to configure how you want it to react when a dvd movie or audio disc(s) are inserted into the drive and you should be able to get it to prompt the user to play with media player x, y or z or w/e so they can select vlc or power dvd or w/e - have you got a laptop of the same make / model with a different dvd drive ( whether dvd rom or dvd rw or w/e )

 

edited

 

If you dont have a dvd decoder installed ( these are normally installed when you install dvd software players such as win dvd / power dvd ) then normal windows media player can't playback dvd's where as vlc / windows media player classic etc already have one inbuilt ( although am not sure to the legality of using these across a school due to the use of libdvdcss or the likes )

 

VideoLAN developers - libdvdcss

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

 

How to Check if DVD Decoder Software is Installed - HelpWithWindows.com

 

All of the laptops have the right Codecs etc. on them, and the drive is already set to come up with a list on insertion of a DVD movie as some teachers prefer Media player, others like VLC so I like to give them the option - the problem is the laptop is not reading the disc as a movie, it's reading it as a data disc and lets you browse it's contents by double clicking it which movie discs normally won't. Our other staff laptops play DVDs fine with the same software installed, although each model was built from the ground up they all had the same treatment and I double checked every single build myself before we took the images so it's identical to our other builds which work fine.

 

I've not had anyone else report this particular problem yet, although there's only 10 of this particular model of laptop in use and a majority of them are with admin staff so there's every chance the same problem exists on them all, just no one else has tried playing a DVD movie yet!

 

I'm going to look into it further tomorrow, I just ran out of time today.

 

Mike.

Edited February 9, 2010 by maniac

[mac_shinobi]

All of the laptops have the right Codecs etc. on them, and the drive is already set to come up with a list on insertion of a DVD movie as some teachers prefer Media player, others like VLC so I like to give them the option - the problem is the laptop is not reading the disc as a movie, it's reading it as a data disc and lets you browse it's contents by double clicking it which movie discs normally won't. Our other staff laptops play DVDs fine with the same software installed, although each model was built from the ground up they all had the same treatment and I double checked every single build myself before we took the images so it's identical to our other builds which work fine.

 

I've not had anyone else report this particular problem yet, although there's only 10 of this particular model of laptop in use and a majority of them are with admin staff so there's every chance the same problem exists on them all, just no one else has tried playing a DVD movie yet!

 

I'm going to look into it further tomorrow, I just ran out of time today.

 

Mike.

 

would be good to know how you get on even if its a pm , cheers

[maniac]

would be good to know how you get on even if its a pm , cheers

 

I'll update this thread if/when I find out what the problem actually is.

[maniac]

OK, this issue is much more widespread than I thought - it's affecting a lot of our staff laptops, but seemingly not all.

 

This occured on a Dell D530 earlier.

 

Call - Can't play DVD on Laptop.

 

Attend call, and find it's the same issue, so I spent about half an hour fiddling around and trying some of the suggestions, and it made no difference, but I did notice the following.

 

If the laptop is booted with the DVD in the drive, then it starts up fine, and recognises the DVD as normal, as per the screen dump below.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/firstboot.jpg

 

Then I ejected it, nothing wrong here recognises it as a DVD / CDRW drive which is correct for this laptop.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/afterejectingit.jpg

 

Put the disc back in and this happens

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/puttingitbackinagain.jpg

 

and take it out again and this happens

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/afterejectingit2ndtime.jpg

 

This squence of events happens in the same way on any machine that's suffering from it.

 

I've un-installed CDburnerXP which we had on all the laptops to see if it made any difference, and just in case also un-installed the Klite codec pack which we also had installed

 

No difference.

 

I'm running out of options - next I'm going to have to re-build my staff build from scratch to see if I can work out where it's gone wrong.

 

Anyone got any further suggestions?

 

Mike.

[mac_shinobi]

OK, this issue is much more widespread than I thought - it's affecting a lot of our staff laptops, but seemingly not all.

 

This occured on a Dell D530 earlier.

 

Call - Can't play DVD on Laptop.

 

Attend call, and find it's the same issue, so I spent about half an hour fiddling around and trying some of the suggestions, and it made no difference, but I did notice the following.

 

If the laptop is booted with the DVD in the drive, then it starts up fine, and recognises the DVD as normal, as per the screen dump below.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/firstboot.jpg

 

Then I ejected it, nothing wrong here recognises it as a DVD / CDRW drive which is correct for this laptop.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/afterejectingit.jpg

 

Put the disc back in and this happens

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/puttingitbackinagain.jpg

 

and take it out again and this happens

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j29/mredman/Misc/afterejectingit2ndtime.jpg

 

This squence of events happens in the same way on any machine that's suffering from it.

 

I've un-installed CDburnerXP which we had on all the laptops to see if it made any difference, and just in case also un-installed the Klite codec pack which we also had installed

 

No difference.

 

I'm running out of options - next I'm going to have to re-build my staff build from scratch to see if I can work out where it's gone wrong.

 

Anyone got any further suggestions?

 

Mike.

 

I had this on a desktop some time ago and it turned out to be the wrong ide / chipset driver so not sure if you can use siw to find out what motherboard it has exactly and maybe try a different chipset driver - assuming you forced it to dma on the controllers etc.

 

On one of the laptops if you use a windows xp disc and install windows xp with drivers for motherboard / chipset etc does the dvd drive work ok now or is it still the same ?

[maniac]

I had this on a desktop some time ago and it turned out to be the wrong ide / chipset driver so not sure if you can use siw to find out what motherboard it has exactly and maybe try a different chipset driver - assuming you forced it to dma on the controllers etc.

 

On one of the laptops if you use a windows xp disc and install windows xp with drivers for motherboard / chipset etc does the dvd drive work ok now or is it still the same ?

 

It's definitely using the right chipset driver, I've already checked this. The laptop builds were all done independently of each other for each model, and this problem is affecting more than one different model - the first one I discovered was a much newer E5500 Dell laptop, the one pictured above is an 18month old Dell D530 both with exactly the same problem.

 

I'm going to build one from scratch during Halfterm and then do our build process one program at a time and see if I can work out at what point it goes wrong.

 

Cheers for your help

 

Mike.

[mac_shinobi]

It's definitely using the right chipset driver, I've already checked this. The laptop builds were all done independently of each other for each model, and this problem is affecting more than one different model - the first one I discovered was a much newer E5500 Dell laptop, the one pictured above is an 18month old Dell D530 both with exactly the same problem.

 

I'm going to build one from scratch during Halfterm and then do our build process one program at a time and see if I can work out at what point it goes wrong.

 

Cheers for your help

 

Mike.

 

just wondering what utils are loaded in the system tray and also do you have the intel matrix storage util / app installed ?

[maniac]

just wondering what utils are loaded in the system tray and also do you have the intel matrix storage util / app installed ?

 

I never install the actual programs, (like wireless management utilities etc) I only install the drivers and do away with the extra programs, therefore it probably won't have the storage management utility on it - do you think that will make a difference?

 

In the system tray you have the network icons, Fog service, Volume, Truecrypt, Lanschool Teachers console, Updates and eject hardware icon and Promethean whiteboard tray icon. All our laptops are identical in this.

Edited February 10, 2010 by maniac

[Arthur]

Anyone got any further suggestions?

 

I had almost exactly the same issue last week while I was testing the VLC Media Player package I am currently working on. In my particular case it was because the registry value shown below was set incorrectly.

 

To play DVDs in Windows Media Player by default you should set the default value in the 'HKCR\DVD\Shell' key to...

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\Shell]
@="[b]Play[/b]"

 

If you would like VLC Media Player to be the default, you need to use this value instead...

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\Shell]
@="[b]PlayWithVLC[/b]"

 

Obviously VLC needs to be installed first for the second example to work.

 

Failing that though, Microsoft's AutoPlay Repair Wizard might be worth a try. Run this, install your media player(s) of choice and then play a DVD.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Arthur

[maniac]

I had almost exactly the same issue last week while I was testing the VLC Media Player package I am currently working on. In my particular case it was because the registry value shown below was set incorrectly.

 

To play DVDs in Windows Media Player by default you should set the default value in the 'HKCR\DVD\Shell' key to...

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\Shell]
@="[b]Play[/b]"

 

If you would like VLC Media Player to be the default, you need to use this value instead...

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\Shell]
@="[b]PlayWithVLC[/b]"

 

Obviously VLC needs to be installed first for the second example to work.

 

Failing that though, Microsoft's AutoPlay Repair Wizard might be worth a try. Run this, install your media player(s) of choice and then play a DVD.

 

I will try this, but I think it's a much more deep problem than just autoplay being messed up, the laptop just doesn't recognise the disc properly in the first place so treats it as a data disc and brings up the contents of the disc in a folder, which is what autoplay is set to do for data discs.

 

Mike.