Toshiba DVD-Rom SD-R2212 refuses to recognise many of my dvd video's! Please help me!

[popstarkapil]

Before I rant I just want to say this is my first post but I've been looking at the board for weeks and all you posters are top dog! Especially Noo Noo and Confus-ed. you have no idea how many problems you answered for me inadvertedly! cheers!

I have a Toshiba DVD-Rom SD-R2212 revA Firmware version X016 (sucsessfully flashed so no probs there!) In a Toshiba Satellite 1100 running Windows XP. My problem is that some of my dvd's refuse to be recognised in 'My Computer' My laptop acts as if the drive is empty. When a dvd goes in the drive clicks as if its about to spin up...then it clicks a few more times then it gives up!

a few times an error message turns up saying the disk in the drive is not formatted and do i wish to do so. (its not a dvd writer drive).

I realise that there are many many many posts with simalar issues so please feel free to answer this directly or just point me to a relevent post that i can use.

Thanking everyone in advance!

Kapil

[NooNoo]

Aaaah another lurker accounted for.... Welcome to Windrivers popstarkapil!

OK, there is an entire rash of this happening lately. I am going to guess this is more to do with anti piracy measures taken by both windows and the dvd disc.

Some dvd's it is known will not play when there is a tv out ability on a machine. Windows has updated various items in its fight to control the media market. According to one member, tv out cannot be turned off in the latest batch of nvidia video drivers.

I personally think we have ended up with a nasty mix of circumstances that make the dvd drive throw its toys out of the pram and refuse to have anything to do with dvds at all!

So my first piece of advice. Sit down and think what happened just before you noticed this problem... did you do any updates? Did you change any configuration settings?

If you have children, you may also wish to inspect the dvd disc for jammy finger syndrome, the adult version would be greasy finger syndrom

Run a cleaner through the dvd drive (you can buy them from most places) to make sure its not something simple.

[popstarkapil]

I did think that some copywriting stuff could be at work but i thought i was being paranoid!

To be honest It's been happening a lot even before I flashed the drive its just becoming more usual. when i'm really lucky i'll boot up the laptop with a problem disk in and it'll work fine! i'm more inclined to think its dirty lens antics because its occuring to lots of my dvd's.

Also there's no TV out (dug a nice hole in the back where i thought the s-video socket would be but it was empty! d'oh!) hmm! i'll give cleaning a go and see what happens. Thank you!

[vip]

I have the same problem, in my lap top I cannot reproduce dvds, the dvd unit (according to windows XP) its a toshiba. Did your already solve the problem, how you made it?.
I'm in Colombia, I try to change de zone but it dont let me.

[Zyle]

I'm having the same problem on a Toshiba SD-C2612, it's driving me mental. It never worked very well, but occasionally would actually let me play a cd or dvd. (I had to put it in and out of the drive 50 times before it would recognise it, but it EVENTUALLY would). Now it either doesnt know there is one in there or tells me its either unformatted or not compatible with windows. I've had this damed machine for over a year and it's done this since the day I got it... but its always been networked to my PC so I just used its drives... until now. Gah.

If anybody knows how to fix this, please help!

[popstarkapil]

Just to say that a couple of days ago i bought a dvd lens cleaner for my laptop dvd. Since using it i've tried to play a load of dvd's and they've all decided to play!! UNTIL i tried watching Disc 1 of 'the usual suspects' and the same thing happened again. The Drive spun and spun then it gave up. Tried cleaning the lens again. no joy so i rebooted and it worked. Yay! little bit of a chore but in the past it took a lot more 'rebooting/ejecting/leaving computer/tapping drive/spinning disc then quickly closing the drive' combination methods to work. Seriously!

In short, follow what NooNoo advised me earlier: Get a DVD lens cleaner and see if that makes a difference!

unfortunetely i've left a lot of my dvd's back at uni so i haven't been able to test all the'dodgy' one's. After i do i'll then know for sure if "greasy finger syndrome." was the culprit!

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Vip and Zyle

Have either of you checked with your laptop manufacturers to see if there is a bios or firmware update to address these issues?

Have either of you updated your dvd playing software?

[vsharp]

I have the same problem with the Toshiba SD-R2212 DVD-ROM of my Toshiba 2410-S205 laptop. It plays original dvd movies and bought-from-the-sidewalk pirate movies but it wouldn't play any movie I burned to DVD-R disc. Lite-On DVD-ROM drive in my desktop pc plays everything I pop into it including the DVD-R discs the Toshiba SD-R2212 DVD-ROM won't play.

If it is security issue, why is it playing any pirate movie bought from the street?

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers vsharp
I think you misunderstood the thread. The problems discussed earlier are about when a DVDrom will not play a genuine DVD.

If your toshiba dvddrive is not -R compatible, that would be your problem.

[JEagle]

I agree with NooNoo, make sure your DVD plays -R. I have learned to NEVER assume when it comes to determining what a player will or won't play. I bought a desktop DVD player a while back and "assumed" it would play VCD and SVCD and low and behold it did not. Until then I was of the assumption that ALL players that played DVD will by default be backward compatible since you see so much push for VCD even still and I had become decent with producing VCDs.

When at all possible before you go buying blank media be sure that anything you wish to view them in is compatible both with the type of media and the format you wish to use.

I just purchased a new NEC Dual Format DVD Burner and have had similar troubles with store bought DVDs but I prefer to watch them on a player through the TV anyhow so have not pursued a solution very strongly myself. Long as it burns what I want when I want and will read my backup Cds I'm golden

Of course when all else fails....

[anotherstatistic]

Greetings from job corp. noonoo, i have a small problem, maybe you can help me. i kind of have the same problem, only more complicated. i'm studying to be a computer service technician here, but cd-rom is iffy to me. give me scsi anyday. anyways, heres the problem. i'm working on a costomer computer here. she wants to back up all her business data and wipe her hard disk. problem is, the file is so big, there is no chance at all that it will all fit to a thumb drive or floppy, and she doesn't even know what a jaz drive or a zip drive is. this job truely sucks. the company i'm training with requires that i save all this stuff in a fashion that the costomer can easily get to it without buying extra components. the comp i'm working on is an HP Pavilion ze1210 laptop PC. this thing is so old i can barely stand myself working with it. it has (at least this is what is says in device manager) a toshiba SD-R2212 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo. this is the most irritating part of it all. when i insert a factory burned cd into the drive, it works flawlessly. but when i put in a disk thats been burned or blank, i says that the disk is in a format that isn't understood or is incompatable with my version of windows. which is beyond me. despite how old this thing is, its running Windows XP. please help. i'm on the verge of insanity here. why god oh why did i want to be a computer technician. as i said, earlier in this post, i have to save this in a fashion that the costomer can easily get to it without buying extra components. so the only thing left is to burn it to CD. noonoo, if you can help me with this, i would be eternally greatful. peace