drives and dvds

[Cassie]

hi, neither of the drivers on my dell will recognize any dvd's, i have a dvd driver and it worked in the past, it currently will not work in either drive and does not even recognize that there is any disc present at all. dvd's that previously worked will no longer play. Does anyone know what is wrong or how to fix it?..thanks, cassie

[GX1_Man]

How old is the drive and has it been used a lot? Has anything happened to the system lately? The symptoms sound like a drive with expired optics, although the mechanical side (tray opening and closing) may work fine. It can happen. What make and model drive?

It would be unusual for two to go out at the same time. If that is what happened, I would recheck all cabling,especially the secondary IDE channel on the MOBO.

[cassie]

sry, well i have a dell dimension 8200. i dont know exactly what the drivers are ive had the computer for about 3 or 4 yrs. there is a "cyberlink powerdvd" driver as my second disk drive however it worked fine when we first installed it, it occasionally jams and will not open though. however my logic tells me it is not necessarilly that program because neither drive shows that there is a dvd present.
p.s. i dont know if it matters but i do have windows xp.

~any advice is greatly appreciated and thank u to those who did repond.

~cassie

[GX1_Man]

Can you go into F2 at startup to see if those drives are recognized in the BIOS/Setup screen? These would be listed in the secondary section.The primary's are the hard drive(s)

If not then you would need to open the case and make sure the cables are snug. There is a 3 prong power cable and a flat gray data cable for each. Remove and replace each. Then see if thaey show up in the setup.

It sounds at least like drive #2 has a mechanical problem.The mechanics generally last longer than the optics with regular use.

Is there any chance those drives could be taken out and tested in another computer to see if they read? They would need to be tested one at a time. To get them out you just have to use the green tabs to release and unhook the cables.

Let us know what you find.

[Dell4700]

Cassie,

In addition to the previous checks to make sure your drive is working:

- Do you mean to say that when you insert a disk, it does not play automatically?  
If so, remove the disk and open (double-click) the player (Win Media Player, Roxio, or whatever you use).  Insert the disk back in the drive.  Wait a few seconds.  
Does it now play?  If not, click on the play button.

Note:  most open players will recognize a DVD when inserted in a drive.  If auto-play is not enabled in your default player, it will not start automatically when you insert a disk.

- I have found that some recent commercial DVDs will try to add their proprietary player/software to your system when you first load the disk.  If they succeed, it can really foul-up your auto-play and other settings.

Dell