Hello everyone,

We're having a strange problem with my friend's computer, the specs are listed above.

He has Windows XP Home, a Pentium 2.8 GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM.

He also has a CD-RW drive as well as a DVD-R drive.

We reformatted his computer a while ago, and reinstalled Windows.

The CDRW drive works fine, but we're having some trouble with the DVD-R drive.

The DVD-R drive can read CDRs and CDRWs fine.

However it cannot read DVDs! This is what happens.

We open up Windows Media Player, and put in the DVD.

It'll do one of two things, the green light will either turn on - it'll make a raspy, sound for about 5 minutes (literally) - act as if it is reading it - and then it freezes and we just take the DVD out.

Or, it will read the DVD but give some sort of error message, one of these being (I believe) that we needed a DVD decoder.

So I then installed Power DVD for him. And it froze with that also.

We went into device manager, uninstalled the device, and rebooted.

Windows found the device, installed whatever components were necessary, but still it would not work properly.

Is the drive shot? Oh I should also add that the drive is IDE, not SATA.

I think the only way to really tell is to switch it with another drive and see if that works. I might give that a try.

Better to try the drive in a different machine. Check to see if the region for the drive is set before doing anything else.

How do I check to see if the region for the drive is set?

Thanks for the reply! :)

Has this drive ever been used to read DVDs?

Yes, it has.

Then when we reformatted apparently it stopped working.

Hmmmm.

We installed PowerDVD, which I believe is able to decode DVDs - but it just freezes - the drive like won't read them. It makes a rattling noise, heh, and the light blinks. Then the computer freezes.

By popping the DVD back out, the computer unfreezes, but it shouldn't do that.

Does it with WMP, and PowerDVD, I believe.

- Steven

The fact that you formatted & reinstalled Windows tells me that you had a previous problem that you didn't know how to fix. What was wrong?

After the reinstall, did you run Windows update? Does he have SP1 or SP2 installed?

How are the drives connected? It's usually recommended to install the CDRW as the 2ndary master. Running two optical drives on the same channel can sometimes cause problems, so I'd have the DVD drive as the primary slave.

Asus A7N8X-X
2500+ Sempron @ 2100mhz
10.5 x 200mhz @ 1.80v
512mb PC3200
Ti4200/8X 128mb
WDC 60GB

We formatted because he had a whole lot of spyware, a whole lot of stuff he didn't need, and we were going to hook up DSL to it so we figured we'd format and start new.

This computer was built for him, it's a custom computer but he bought it from some gaming magazine or something. So I'm pretty sure that the drives are set up properly.

I don't know what else it could be other than a bad drive, but it still plays CDs so I don't know what's up.

Let me see if I have the situation clear. The drive reads CDs fine, does it make the rattling noise then? It won't read DVDs and locks up the computer. There is a separate laser to read DVD media but that shouldn't be able to make a rattling noise. Could the rattling noise be coming from the speakers? Have you tried more than one DVD disk in the drive. A damaged disk, or one with an unbalanced label will make such a noise. Additionally, if this happens the entire drive will be vibrating and I guess it could lock up the computer. You need to try a commercial disk in there.

Yes, the drive reads CDs fine. And no, it does not make a rattling noise then. It sounds fine, like it's reading the disk.

But when I say 'rattling' what I mean is that it doesn't seem to be reading, make a sound like it's about to but doesn't, and it keeps doing that. So it's sort of a rattling sound but not like there is something stuck in there or anything. Just put it this way, it's a sound that it shouldn't be making. Heh.

The rattling noise is not coming from the speakers.

The disk is commercial. It's not a label or anything of that sort.

And yes, when you put a CD in there the computer locks up.

Because it keeps trying to read the DVD but can't.

Try to remove any DVD reading software and reboot. Then try reading the DVD again without any software installed and see what happens.

Yeah, well this is what we've tried so far.

First I uninstalled PowerDVD, and I think one other DVD player.

Then I noticed he was missing a VGA controller or something, so I installed the NVIDIA detenator drivers from the website.

Then we tried to play a DVD, and it didn't work.

So I went back into device manager, and uninstalled the device (the DVD-R drive).

Rebooted.

It reinstalled the device, rebooted again.

And then tried to play the DVD again - and it didn't work.

So I don't know what else to do other than take the DVD-R out and try it in a different computer.

- Steven

Oh but I should point out that it sort of worked.

After I uninstalled the device, and it reinstalled it and what not.

When we tried to play the DVD it read it but wouldn't play it - said we needed a DVD decoder I think.

So I installed PowerDVD again.

And it locked up the computer when we put the DVD back in.

- Steven

Is all the other software installed, updated since xp was reinstalled?

See if you can play a dvd file from your hard drive.

Make a folder on your desktop with this name....

Video_TS

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/badboy_oklahoma

download the files in the Video_TS folder to the folder you made.
right click on the 12 kb .IFO file an select your dvd player.
This should determine a software or hardware problem.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

You state that the CDRW in this machine works fine. Does that mean it will burn disks too. Could the cable from the CDRW be used on the DVD-r drive. If you try this, be sure the jumpers are set correctly. One thing isn't clear here, did all drives work properly before the last format and reinstall? Does the Windows installation have the same exact service packs and patches as before?

Hi Steven,

You are aware that DVD drives use two lasers, one for DVDs and another for CDs?

You could try cleaning the drive with either a cleaning CD or compressed air. If this doesn't work, then it is likely that the DVD laser or circuitry is shot.

Oil_Tan,

Ingenious idea! I would never have thought of trying that.

My friend followed the directions, and strangely - he claims that as soon as he opened up the folder it began playing the - whatever it was - in PowerDVD.

Not too sure about that. But anyways, he closed PowerDVD and the folder, opened the folder back up - this time it did not 'autoplay' - and I guess that it didn't work when he chose PowerDVD from the "Choose a program from the list" menu. It went to the main menu, but played nothing.

In WMP, same thing - it opened WMP but didn't play anything. Just a black screen.

- Steven

I would make sure windows is updated, especially directx.
Mother board drivers.
Can anyone else add to this?

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

Avoid WMP 10.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

Oil_Tan,

Was it supposed to be only a black screen? Here is a screen shot: http://members.lycos.co.uk/aliste20/ss10.PNG

Also, everything is updated. We downloaded the detenator drivers from the NVIDIA website.

Hmmm.

Tornado Alley Rips, a title with lightning and harley davidson accelerating away audio.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

I believe it is WMP 10. Almost positive.

But it should still play in PowerDVD right?

(shrugs) I don't know, I think I'll try the compressed air.

How do you use compressed air with a DVD-R though? Wouldn't that be blowing all of the dust into it rather than our of it? Hmmm.

Also I think we'll try the updates, but we'll do it manually because I'm not a fan of SP2 and when automatic updates is on it tries to install SP2. So we'll go to the website instead and install them together, everything but SP2.

- Steven

I had a very good experiance using XP_SP2 as a download and not from windows update.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

Oil_Tan,

I tried the Video_TS thing on my own computer and here is what happened.

At first I tried opening the 12KB IFO file with PowerDVD.

It did nothing.

Then I tried opening the 12KB IFO file with WMP.

It paused a second, said "Loading..."

Then it played. It was the title, as you said - with lightning.

Hmmm. So it works on WMP on my computer, but not his.

We are both using WMP 10.

However my computer is probably much more, uh, updated - then his. Heh. I keep everything really simple on my computer - he has a bunch of stuff - most of which I have no idea what it is.

- Steven

If he has roxio 5 or older could cause problems. Also a lot of freebies have adware/spyware. Yes, I like simple just mpg2 encoders and nero, ulead, some avi codecs and divx. I guess uploading the title files did something to it, since it has a delayed start.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

Well, I just tried playing a DVD in my own computer.

Kind of scared that I may be jinxed. Played in PowerDVD as it should with no problems.

There must be another reason why a DVD will not play on his computer. Either his DVD drive is physically damaged, or his computer is not updated.

Next time I'm over his house I'm going to try updating his computer (Window's updates).

If that doesn't work, then I think I'll point him in the direction of a new DVD-R drive. Heh.

- Steven

One last thing.
He could download the mpg's in my briefcase and use the free trials of ulead.com, either dvd movie factory/video studio and run the mpgs through that, save as file and then play.

Leon Wisnensky
The Hot Dog Vending Pimp

This could be an issue with the ASPI layer drivers. These drivers are necessary for the optical drives and are also loaded by PowerDVD and other players. The problem is that there can be conflicts bewteen the various versions of the drivers and some software will load third party ASPI drivers. This seems to be so prevalent recently. Most of the time it manifests itself by the drives not showing in WinXP when they show in the POST screens and maybe in earier versions of windows when using a dual boot. In my own case, which forced me up to speed on this issue, I had fully functional drives that showed in both Win98 and Win2000 but a labeling software could not find any optical drives when in win98 but could in Win2000. My solution was to kill all ASPI drivers in Win98 and install an earlier version. For anyone interested in this issue a good read and help article is here: http://aspi.radified.com/

So how would I know if there is a conflict with the ASPI layer drivers?

If there were, wouldn't the DVD-R drive stop playing CDs as well as DVDs?

Because it plays CDs just not DVDs.

- Steven

As I stated, it can affect different drives in different ways. If you go to the link I provided and read the article you will have a better understanding of it. This is something that has croped up, I think just recently. When you install these different burner and player prgrams they all install different versions of ASPI drivers. I don't claim to fully understand it but I see many folks here that are having issues that revolve around these drivers IMO. The articals has links to several downloads. You can download a utility that will check and tell you which drivers are installed. There is another program that can force the installation of drivers and yet another that can remove all the ASPI drivers. As far as the answers to your most recent questions, I have none. I can't even say for sure that this is the issue. What I can say is there are currently 4 or 5 threads that I am involved in that deal with similar issues and the article infers that many people are having problems related to these drivers.

Check the cabling like I suggested. The DVD-ROM should be primary slave & CD burner should be 2ndary master. If they're setup differently, change them...if it doesn't do the trick, you can always change them back.

Asus A7N8X-X
2500+ Sempron @ 2100mhz
10.5 x 200mhz @ 1.80v
512mb PC3200
Ti4200/8X 128mb
WDC 60GB

The DVD-R has worked previously, with the CD burner.

It's always been set up that way I don't see why it would decide that it didn't like the cabling now.

But thank you for the reply, you guys are really helpful. I appreciate it a lot. :)

He has DirectX 9.0b by the way, I'm going to update him to 9.0c when I get over to his house.

Not counting on that working though. Heh. I had 8.1 until just recently and I could always play DVDs.

I'll check the article that you linked me to - thanks a lot OtheHill and Jam! :)

- Steven

I would like to know if you ever solved the problem. I have a very similar laptop computer as your friend...Pentium 4, 2.8 ghz, 512 mb RAM, dvd/cd rw combo drive. I've had no problem viewing dvds until recently. All of a sudden, now it will only play the previews but not the movies. I truly suspect it is the copyrite protection. I've read about similar problems from other people out there in other forums. They have a dvd decoder called AnyDVD that might be the answer.