Dvdram Drive Wont Read Disc!

[esebs21]

I just picked up Silent Hunter 4 and my dvd drive wont read the disc.
I have a HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA 4120b drive
I've tied some different driver updates but nothing seems to work, not sure what the problem is.
I know my cpu meets the requirements for the game I just cant get the disc to read. It acts as though there is no disc in the drive at all!!

Any suggestions ????????

[esebs21]

Yes it is clean and the drive will read other discs.
The disc is brand new right out of the box.
????????????????

[NooNoo]

You need to take it to a friends house and see if it is read there, if not, you have a faulty disk.

[esebs21]

No kidding, i will try that i guess, you dont think there could be a driver problem or something of theat nature considering the game just came out not that long ago??

[NooNoo]

You said the disk won't read. From the way you said it, I assume that your other games read fine.

CD/DVD drives use the same drivers as your hard drives. It either works or it doesn't... it can't pick and choose between games!

[esebs21]

You are correct other games do work, however, I dont believe the other games I have are DVD discs as this one is. So to clerify the drive will read regular discs just no DVD discs movies, games, etc.

[Platypus]

If the drive reads CDs but not DVDs, a good thing to try is a bootable DVD, such as more recent software installation disks like the Vista install disk, or a computer magazine cover disk that is a Linux Live DVD. If you have or are able to beg, borrow or buy such a disk, it removes any uncertainty about drivers from the scene.

In the computer's BIOS setup, temporarily make the optical drive the first boot device, and start up the computer with that disk in the drive. If it boots from the disk (eg with a Linux Live DVD, Linux starts up), then the drive is OK. If it doesn't read the DVD, and moves on to start up Windows from the hard drive as normal, then the drive is unable to read a DVD. Basically this points to either a laser failure or a dirty laser lens, so in this case if the laser is definitely clean, the drive would need replacement.

From your description there's a good chance this is the problem.

[NooNoo]

So you are saying no DVDs read at all? Not even a shop bought movie? If so, it is most likely that the DVD side of your drive died...

You could try new firmware? This drive was often supplied with a Dell machine, do you have a Dell pc? If so, what service tag?