Need some good folks to Sherlock Holmes what's been happening

[spodekmodek]

Symptoms
A while ago, DVD Drive stopped recognizing DVD-Rs to play in computer.
Commercial ones fine.
DVDFab & DVD shrink work to burn DVDs. Computer recognizes CDs.
Nero DVD activities involving videos picked up from the web stopped working. Tried many others to burn Youtube type videos with no success.
Recently, converted the FLVs to DVD format and was able to burn them with DVD shrink but no menu and awkward.
Similarly, NO DVD-Rs can be copied, regardless of whether they were commercial or not.
I assume because the computer doesnt recognize them.

So...if the DVD drive was going, wouldnt it also prevent the recoginizing & burning of commerical DVDs as well. Does this sound like a missing codec or firmware. I'm a little leery of going through the update process.

Any thoughts would be appreciated like crazy. Thanks!

[mazinz]

its probably your drive. I have a dvd-rom drive that no longer reads the dvd-ram format. It
used to, however it sill reads and copies everything else. Get another drive

[bendixG15]

Symptoms
................. I'm a little leery of going through the update process. ..........

The update process is rather simple, just pull the old drive out and plunk in the new.
Also cheap, $30-$40 tops last time I looked.

[aedipuss]

sounds more like a nero problem. i wouldn't put that program on an ex's computer. dump it and only use imgburn to burn cds and dvds.

[Alex_ander]

Looks like it's time to change the drive, already done it twice after having similar symptoms + death of 2 or 3 DVDRs at burning. In both cases laser lived for about 1.5 years with 3 DVDRs a week burning.

[Nelson37]

Too much missing informaion.

What program is the default player for DVD on the PC? Nero, perhaps? HAVE YOU TRIED ANOTHER PLAYER, most especially VLC which has self-contained codecs and does not depend on codecs installed on the PC?

Describe very carefully any and all DVD activities which fail, WHICH DO NOT USE NERO.

It is unclear from your info which processes, if any, these might be. It does appear that processes NOT using Nero are the only ones functioning. You describe many processes with no info at all about what program was doing the activity. When the PC "recognizes" a DVD, does it sit up and say "Hi, Bob"? Did you open My Computer, Windows Explorer, or any one of a dozen or more progs to play a video, or one of the hundreds which will browse a disk, or did you experience ONE failure of the ONE default program to play DVD on your PC, which if you did a standard install of Nero, guess which ONE program that would be?

It is possible the drive has failed.

It is possible the Nero install is completely hosed.

You give no description at all about what changes were made to the PC, both slightly before and right around the time of "a while ago".

[spodekmodek]

Thanks for the attention folks. I'm afraid that your magnanimous offers to help will probably be limited by my post labotomy comprehension of terms, processes etc.

What I remember......
Not sure what is the default on playing commercial dvds as it asks what I would like to open it with. Any programs work.
DVD fab and DVD Shrink work fine with them.

Problem lies with various files picked up off the web and burning them. As well as making copies of BOTH DVDrs from commercial DVDs and Youtube type DVDs.

Have tried, Nero, Roxio, and a few others to burn the various AVI type files on my PC.(never had a problem with this before) Often they say "successfully burned" but sit their like a ham in my DVD player. Only recently after having converted those AVI to DVD files (TS) file
could I drag them into Shrink and burn them successfully.

Copying the DVDrs....I have tried every program and the DVDr just doesnt get recognized by the drive.

I think my limited understanding of the default nature of the player may be problematic. When it comes to burning DVDs I "choose" Nero or roxio. Not sure if there is a default involved that affects the process.

As none of the softwares seem to affect the fact that my DVDr doesnt recognize the DVDrs so I may copy them, it probably isnt just a NERO issue. I wish I could remember what I was doing at the time to retrace the steps and rectify it. But alas,...I have no idea.

Just might have to helicopter in a 12 year old child to help me out personally.

Thanks Much!

[ntscuser]

If the DVDRs were made some time ago and the brand of media they were burned to was poor (ie: Ritek) it is possible they have deteriorated since they were first burned. You don't say if the DVDRs have labels attached to them, a factor which could also degrade performance?

[Nelson37]

All righty, lets start with basics.

First, completely eliminate all Internet-based files for testing purposes. ALL such files must be considered suspect. You must start with a known good quantity in order to have good data for testing.

Put in a factory-pressed video DVD. Does it play?

Put in a blank DVD, and copy some data files to it, you may want to test a variety of burning programs. ImgBurn and CDBurnerXPPro are two basic, standard burning progs, all they do is burn, and rarely fail. Nere and other similar suites have thrown in everything but the kitchen sink, the more complicated the plumbing, the more likely it is to leak.

Using Windows Explorer, or My Computer, can you see the data files burned to the disk?

This will accurately test reading of pressed disk, burning, and reading of burned disk. Note that this is done COMPLETELY OUTSIDE of any sort of video conversion process.

If that works, take the original commercial DVD, Shrink it, burn with ImgBurn, and view the data files as described. Then play the video, preferably using the VLC player as mentioned previously. This player is ISOLATED from other system files because it is self-contained.

Your description of the problem appears to involve a conversion of an Internet video file on all or nearly of the failure points. Video conversion is complex and Internet files are unreliable. First stage of testing is to make certain these two variables are NOT involved in the problem.

[spodekmodek]

Man. Thanks for your time and attention to detail.
Dynamite. I will try the things you say. Just as a quick follow up, the DVDrs I am trying to copy are not only from internet video files but from very standard Commercial DVDs. They are recent TDK DVDrs.

Again, Nachos Grande to you