Most CD-ROMs can't read my VCDs, why?

[organic]

A friend made some VCDs for me, but I am not exactly sure how she
went about it. I was unable to even read the discs on 2 Windows machines and 1 Mac. I _was_ finally able to see the contents of the discs
on an iMac with the superdrive (DVD/CD writer I think), but there was no
software to view the .dat files...*argh*

Is this a common problem? The files are there, but the CD-ROM drives
could not even read the CDs. I haven't yet tried in a DVD player (I don't have one yet) or a DVD-ROM drive.

Any help would be much appreciated.

organic

[devinemi83]

Just open those files in WMP player.

[organic]

I guess I didn't make myself clear:

The CD-ROMs won't even read the CDs! The only drive that would acknowledge the fact that there was a CD in the drive was the iMac DVD/CD/burner.

I get the error: "Please insert a disc into drive D:" when the disc is already in there.

Please help, gurus of VCDs...

[vitualis]

This is definitely abnormal behaviour. Any CD drive capable of reading MODE2/XA sectors (which I believe are all drives bar the absolute very very early ones) should be able to read the data on VCDs.

There is likely to be something wrong with those discs.

Regards.

[organic]

OK - out of 6 VCDs, I have been able to read 5 with a different drive, a generic 10x DVD-ROM. The one disc that wouldn't read must be corrupted.

If I can find out how that first one was burnt, I will post that here for posterity's sake, so others can avoid it.

Thanks for the reply, Vitualis, I didn't think normal VCDs would be so complicated to read - must be the disc.

organic

[mdm]

How old are the CD-ROM drives you are trying them on? I had a bunch of Compaq 16x drives (made by Lite-On or Goldstar I think) that simply didn't like CD-R/RW media.

If you can read the discs in a DVD-ROM or CD-R/RW drive, then it's likely a drive/media compatiblity problem.

[Hansiman]

I don't think it's the media that's causing your problems. What burning-software do you use ? I've had problems in the past with VCD's burnt with WinonCD. Only my standalone DVD read those discs. Nero doesn't give that problem, it's still readable in a standard cd/dvd.

[organic]

mdm -

The drives that I first tried are not that old...they are Asus 52x, and at least one of the machines was built last year.


hansiman -

As I said in my original post, a friend burned these for me and I don't know how she did it - I suspect she did something similar to what you did in the past. I agree, Nero works well as far as I know, I have burned a few VCDs myself with no problems - it shouldn't be so hard!!!