Laptop DVD drive turned into CDROM!!

**toohipfortheroom** · August 15th, 2004, 07:41 PM

Okay, I read a bazillion posts and if someone has asked this already, I apologize, but I didn't see it.....

I have had my Toshiba Satellite 1135 laptop for a little over a year, and never had a problem.

Yesterday, I put a DVD in to watch (rented, so it's a real DVD...), and nothing happened, it just clicked and whirred and clicked some more.

I put in an audio CD. Worked fine. Software CD worked fine.

I tried burning a CDR and it didn't work.

After a while, I noticed that if I go to "my computer" drive D: is listed as DVD/CDRW Drive, but in the next column, under "type," it is identified as a "CD Drive."

I went to device manager. My drive is listed as Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R2412, but if I double-click on it, the tab that states "Device Type: DVD/CDROM Drives, and under Manufacturer it says "(Standard CDROM Drives)"

I have no clue as to whether this is a BIOS error, a Windows XP error, or what.....I did notice all my drivers in the drivers tab say things like cdrom.sys, and none say DVD.

Help, anyone????????????

tony

**toohipfortheroom** · August 15th, 2004, 09:34 PM

OK, I just realized that the stuff about how it says CD drive, etc. - it's supposed to be like that.

Here's the real scoop.....Windows Media Player doesn't have the DVD option, it's greyed out.

If I use Intervideo Win DVD, it says "Can not find any CDROM or DVD Drive."

If I double click on the drive with a DVD in it, it says "windows can not read from this disk. It may be corrupted or might use a format that is not compatible with windows."

and that's the news.........somebody help me please!!!!

tony

**NooNoo** · August 16th, 2004, 09:25 AM

Welcome to Windrivers toohip

On the face of it, it looks like you are going to join a queue of annoyed dvd/cdrw drive owners who have discovered that part of the drive died on them.

It could also be something as simple as a dirty lens or dirty/scratched dvd movie you had. You need to clean the drive and check various sorts of media and post again.

You should also think about any installs/uninstalls that happened around the time you discovered the problem.

**toohipfortheroom** · August 16th, 2004, 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

Welcome to Windrivers toohip

It could also be something as simple as a dirty lens or dirty/scratched dvd movie you had. You need to clean the drive and check various sorts of media and post again.

You should also think about any installs/uninstalls that happened around the time you discovered the problem.

I went back to system restore points, and replace all drivers that had anything to do with this....none were missing..

Do you think it could be a lens problem if it can read any and all CDs, but no DVDs (I tried about two dozen different ones, just to be sure...)

In light of all this, any recommends for a USB2.0 External DVD burner? Looks like I'm gonna need something, might as well look at it as an "upgrade."

thanks
tony

**NooNoo** · August 16th, 2004, 09:47 AM

These combo drives are two drives in one... two lasers... one of the optics goes down, you lose that functionality.

Getting a lens cleaner for the drive will not do any harm.

I like my external sony it is both firewire and usb 2. Not had a problem yet.....

**enternewid** · August 22nd, 2004, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by toohipfortheroom

I went back to system restore points, and replace all drivers that had anything to do with this....none were missing..

Do you think it could be a lens problem if it can read any and all CDs, but no DVDs (I tried about two dozen different ones, just to be sure...)

In light of all this, any recommends for a USB2.0 External DVD burner? Looks like I'm gonna need something, might as well look at it as an "upgrade."

thanks
tony

You may have a defective unit, but here is a post I did to another simular problem. You might try uninsltalling the last few Windows up dates and see what happens. If that doesn't work then it is simple to reinstall the windows updates.

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Ok, I had the same problem after doing a Windows update. My DVD drive would change and say cd drive when I put a blank disk in. After a couple hours searching the net I came up with setting the Secondary IDE Channel from DMA to PIO. Go to control panel/system/hardware/device manager/IDE-ATA/ADAPTI Controllers /Secondary IDE Channel. Right click on Secondary IDE Channel then Properties.

This worked and I could burn a blank disk. The problem is the newly burned DVD would play in my Computer, but not in my stand alone tv unit. I am using the same programs and pack of blank DVD's that worked last week!! After spending 4 or more hours searching the net and seeing that lot's of people are starting to have this problem I believe the problem is with one of the windows updates.

I did a rollback to before I ran the last batch of windows updates (about a week ago). This still did not fix the playing DVD's on my TV unit problem.

I noticed that some of the Updates and Hotfixes didn't disappear with the roll back! I started uninstalling the latest few updates with the add/remove programs list. There was one I was suspious of, Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) [See KB810243 for more information]. I am not sure if this was the problem, but since I removed about 5 of the last updates my burner works fine and I can play the newly burned DVD's in my TV unit! And I went back to check the DMA / PIO setting and it had reverted back to the DMA setting and still recognizes my blank DVD's!