DVD/RW will read CD's but NOT DVD's HELP!! please!

Hey everyone,

My DVD/RW stopped reading DVD's awhile ago so I decided to reinstall windows. After reinstalling windows and WinDVD it still will not read DVD's. I can play audio cd's or software cd's but if I insert a DVD the drive goes from "DVD-RAM Drive ( D: )" to "CD Drive ( D: )" but that's all it does. I can't run any DVD's no matter what they are. If I open the D: drive folder its just empty.

Anyone know what the problem might be?

I'm running Windows XP Media Center Edition

Thanks!

-Kosta

Welcome to Windrivers Kosta

It may be the dvd side of the drive has died. There is alot of complaints about this for various models. It is because the dvd and cd parts of the drive have different lasers... one dies, the other doesn't.

The only way to check this is to put the drive in a completely different machine and see if the dvd side works or not.

So there is nothing I can do to fix it?

Not if what I said is true - you will have to test that though.