NEC DVD Will Not Recognize DVD Disk

I have been using my computer and DVD writer (NEC DVD RW ND1300A) to watch my commercially rented movies. Until I failed with this one particular DVD, I never had any problems with watching commercial DVDs or burned ones, nor have I had any issues burning with this drive.

I put this particular disk in, and it appears that the drive does not recogize that a disk is in the drive. I cannot pull up a directory from the drive, and my DVD software player reports that no disk is in the drive.

Is this a hardware or software issue? Does anyone have any suggestions where I can look to resolve this issue? Is is resolvable? I will consider any advice that you valued and experienced people have to offer.

Jen

PS ... Prior to writing this, I updated my drive's firmware with the latest I could find. I have not found any device drivers, relying only on the ones Windows assigned. Windows XP is fully updated.

Are you saying that this particular DVD is the only one that won't play or no DVD will play after trying that one?

Just a few isolated ones tend not to work. The DVD writer dosen't recognize a disk being inserted. Everything else works without issue.

It may be a encryption problem. Here's a list of ARccOS encrypted DVD's. Are your problem ones on the list?

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=48842

If not, then I'm out of ideas for the moment.

Thanks Redwudz, I found that information pretty interesting. I can respect the challenges that encryption has for those that wish to decrypt a DVD, but in my case ... I just want to watch it. Not ruling out that possibility, but it seems odd that encryption would limit the disk's intentional use.
Maybe the producers of this disk have some sort of anti-computer use coding ... does that exist?

Unfortunate I guess. Won't be able to watch this movie anytime soon. I suppose I was looking to an easy solution, but it would appear not that easy. If their are other suggestion out there, like Redwudz contributions, I will be grateful.

Jen

I have a similar problem. I had been successfully reading and burning DVDs with two separate external USB DVD RW drives until something happened yesterday that suddenly prevented my DVD drives from recognizing DVD disks (They both still recognize CDs okay.) If I insert any DVD (whether blank or a commercial movie, etc.) into either DVD drive, I now get an error message saying, "Please insert a disk into drive [L: or J: depending on the drive]." Windows Media Player will recognize the drives if a CD is inserted but not if a DVD is inserted. Similarly, Nero reads and burns CDs okay in both external DVD drives but will not recognize inserted DVD disks in either drive. I can't think what I may have done in the last 24 hours to cause this change. I've uninstalled and re-installed the drives, and I've tried updating drivers (no updates appeared to have been necessary), to no avail. That both drives are similarly affected suggests to me that the problem lies not with either drive (installation, drivers, connections, etc.) but rather with the system. Any ideas?

The two external USB DVD RW drives referred to are the LG GSA-5169D and the Mad Dog Multimedia Dominator USB 2.0. I am using a stand-alone desktop powered by a Pentium 4 (1.8GHz), Win XP Home SP2.

jim2148

jim2148 :

Externals can be nasty thing's ... dose your's use any external power source other than that from the pc usb sub system ?

You must always check the power requirement's of these thing's , especially when there's two of them connected at the same time , and compare it to the motherboard's manual . Most current system's supply a maximum of two amps of current , and it's easy enough to trip up the usb sub system and overload it . While modern system's are capable of reseting this problem , from then on , it run's like a cripple , and eventually overheats any addon video card's , due to the design of the power management chip ... the little apic bugger the the os thinks it's in control of , when in fact , the bios is the controller .

You may need access to another pc to confirm the unit's still fully function , but remember the caution .

It's quite possible they still do , but usb2 highspeed full function and control no longer exists on the current system , and would require an addon usb2 card .

From test's from several high speed device's , it is advisable , that these be disconnected using the tray icon , before the os is shutdown .

Several issue's have appeared when using usb flash drive's , such as "where is it" upon reboots , or the system dosent recognize the device until one removes it properly , then reconnect the device .

Remember , a lot of these device's are not marked as "plug n play" , nor are the friendly ... thing's do go wrong if one is not careful .

There's also a chance that both interface's from the unit's themselves may have only been affected , since both have developed the same symptom's at the same time .

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MaximumArk

Turn the unit off , and rip the power out of it before this .

Open the case , and disconnect the drive's cable , and make sure it is a snug fit on the mainboard , then reconnect the other end to the drive .

Take the jumper of the back of it , and push it back on the same pins from where it came from .

Repower the system and check again .

I would actually , if possible , replace the cable itself with a new one , if it's handy ... cable's do fowl up every now and then .

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If that didn't work , then there is always a possibility that the psu (power supply) , may be at fault , even though the system appears to be running as normal .

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There has been issue's with manufacturer's when it come's to the creation of the control circuit's of many model's .

I have personally pulled these apart to find small amount's of solder slag breaching contact's across circuit's ... for whatever reason , the unit's worked well till this event appeared and the solution was to remove very carefully the bridge formed by this solder slag ... the unit's are working flawlessly once more .

If another pc can be obtained to test the unit , then do so ... if it fails there , then the hardware itself is at fault , and a new drive is required .

Should it succeed , then there may be an issue with the actual os , but this is highly unlikely to be so , unless one is prepared to investigate all possible solution's from scratch , basic hardware level and up into the os itself . The simplest method would be to use a current bootable linux os that supports dvd burning so one can carry out the basic test without the interference of the xp os and it's driver's . Should it succeed at this level , then the current os is suspect .

Should the system be using a recent chipset and sata , then you would need to confirm that the linux chosen has had the kernel update applied and the driver's package for sata ... Some motherboard's cannot have this changed within the bios , as some have listed on linux site's .

Not forgetting the simplest of thing's could fall under the category of :

1: Clean the thing with an appropriate cd/dvd cleaning disc ... not one from you local bargain hunter's store's , cause there junk .
2: The drive has done more work than actual purported , and has finally thrown the towel in when it come's to dvd's .
3: Nasty retarded Trojan's , and poorly written program's recently installed ... they can cause all myriads of problem's under the current os .

Avgfree , install , update , if bugs found , dont forget to empty out the vault ... they can still deny internet / mail service's from here .

Ad-aware se , update , scan , quaranteen anything it finds , and when done , hit the lock and delete the backup ... you don't need this crap .

Spybot s&d , if ad-aware has been through already , you wont find anything new .

Hijackthis , scan system , check anything not required by the os from startup , quicktime , messenger , yahoo messenger , incredimail , you name it , kill them off for now ... the system will call these when needed ... don't bog you pc down from the start .

Restart pc , and repeat the scan ... anything you don't understand being listed should have a search performed online , and you may want to post the log at the form mentioned in the about , and ask for help .