My DVD drive won't read DVDs

[Col's Cavern]

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated,

My DVD drive in my PC has suddenly stopped working. It can read audio CDs
and CD-ROMs no problem, it just won't play any DVDs. It just keeps
clicking, like it can't start to read what is on the disc. I thought it
might be a dodgy disc, but I've tried loads of different ones and it does
the same. I've also tried restarting it.

It was working fine last night when I watched The Italian Job (excellent
film) and I haven't installed or updated any new programs since.

I'd be very grateful for any ideas or help on how to fix this.

Thanks & regards,
Col.

[Lithurge]

"Col's Cavern" <nospam...@thankyou.com> wrote in
news:c2l333$510$1...@hercules.btinternet.com:

Possible the laser mechanism has gone CDs & DVDs use
different lasers, which would explain why the CDs still work.

You could try a head cleaner, but if it still doesn't work
and you decide the thing is brokem, then you're better off
picking up a new drive & replacing it as you can pick them up
for about £30. You might have to flash the bios if you want a
multiregion drive though.

[Colin Wilson]

> I'd be very grateful for any ideas or help on how to fix this.

The drive is probably fucked. Most CD / DVD combo drives have two
seperate mechanisms from what i`ve read, and it sounds like the DVD side
has died.

Time to buy yourself a writer instead perhaps - and at least you`ll have
a warranty with that :-p

--
Please add "[newsgroup]" in the subject of any personal replies via email
* old email address "btiruseless" abandoned due to worm-generated spam *
--- My new email address has "ngspamtrap" & @btinternet.com in it ;-) ---

[Rob Davies]

"Col's Cavern" <nospam...@thankyou.com> wrote in message
news:c2l333$510$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...

Don't assume it *is* a hardware problem. After reinstalling XP on my laptop
I had no DVD readability until I installed a couple of apps that dropped in
the necessary Mpeg Decoder - I had anticipated having to buy a new Drive but
all's fine now. In fact I suspected quite quickly it was a software issue
when I found my external DVD burner was in a similar state!

Rob

> Thanks & regards,
> Col.
>
>

[francis....@gmail.com]

I spent many hours looking at threads and trying various solutions that did not work. I finally found the solution (for me) by chance: iTunes is responsible. It installed a filter that messed up with the proper operation of the DVD drive.

Go to Itunes and try to access your drive to burn a CD. When it gives you an error saying that it does not find it, search the Itunes website for the error text (I don't remember what it was and can't reproduce it now since the problem is solved). They will get you to make a change in the registry. Since I have done this, my DVD drive works perfectly.