Hi everyone, hope someone might be able to help with this puzzler. Overnight, or even faster, the disk drive on my desktop PC has stopped reading DVD-Rs. I’d been ripping my collection to my harddrive using Handbrake with no problems, and then it suddenly stopped recognising DVD-Rs, tending to see them as blank disks, but not seeing any data on them. I’ve had no error messages to suggest a problem.
– “Pre-recorded” disks are still fine.
– As far as I can tell there was no software update since the last DVD-R I ripped literally hours before
– I’ve done a system restore to a week ago but no change
– It’s an HP PC if that makes any difference
All ideas appreciated, for what might have caused this, and (especially) how to fix it! Thanks as always, enjoy your sunny Sunday!
ATM: PC DVD drive no longer raeding DVD-Rs?!
How old is the DVD drive?
The laser/detector mechanisms age and recordable discs are not as reflective as pre-recorded ones. This is a common problem in CD players as we tend to hold onto them for longer than we do computers.
Replacing the drive might be your best option. They are not hugely expensive.
Thanks Steve. the PC is only a few months old (bought in February), but I have been caning it somewhat with this ripping project, so your suggestion isn’t strictly impossible, though I hope a less extreme solution might present itself before I explore that further!
Wherever you bought that from would be obliged to sort that under warranty then. No-one would repair it so you’ll get a replacement (meaning just the drive, not the whole PC)
I have had instances of the CD/DVD drive in my 7 or 8 year old laptop stopping reading discs after being caned for a while ripping batches of audio CDs with Audacity. It could be a software/firmware glitch or the drive overheating from a lot of use, because it does get a bit warm. Switching off and rebooting, allowing the drive to cool down for a while seems to resolve it in my case but a desktop PC’s CD/DVD drive should run cooler than one in a laptop.
Steve is correct that CDRs and DVDRs are harder for drives to read than ordinary CDs. They also deteriorate faster. They’re not reliable enough to use for backups, I’ve found.
If the drive has indeed failed and your PC was bought new in February, then it should still be under guarantee from both vendor and manufacturer and should be returned. You should back everything on it up first, of course.
Yep, don’t rule out heat. As with most IT issues, first try turning it off and on again.
Whacking it hard on the side of the case often works. *
* it doesn’t.
I had something similar and followed a web guide to effectively delete it as a hardware device in Control Panel, then reboot, and the PC rediscovers the drive and reinstalls it. Someone here. Might be able to suggest a more complete process? Anyway, it worked.
Good suggestion – I think I’d try this before schlepping back to the shop.
If you’re running Windows 7 or above, just type “Device Manager” in when you’ve clicked the Start menu thingy, and it should find an application called, er, Device Manager. That’ll show you the DVD/CD ROM drives you have at your disposal, and give you the option to remove the offending “device” – your recalcitrant DVD ROM drive – and then follow its removal with a reboot which should mean that Windows magically rediscovers the fact that a DVD-ROM drive is attached and installs some drivers to let it do its stuff.
Usual caveats apply ‘cos I’m wearing my “No I won’t fix your PC” T-shirt.
This ⬆️
This, plus run Windows Update
Under Windows 10, pressing the Windows Key and X together will give you a menu of various administrative tools and shortcuts, with Device Manager amongst them.
Possibly a problem with a particular brand of disc? My hard drive can occasionally be quite picky about what make of disc it will read.
Could be some discs are deteriorating while others are still OK. Writable discs are not a reliable long-term storage medium, as I have personally found.
When you say pre-recorded disks read ok, do you mean CDs or DVDs? And what about Windows Media Player reading them rather than Handbrake? Or even just being able to see the files on the disk in Windows Explorer. I’d be trying variations to isolate the problem to disk, software or drive… Heat could be the problem, and laser diodes do blow out. I don’t know enough about hardware to suggest if it is one particular laser that has gone
The system restore is a bit of an of one too. Why did you have to do that? Did the drive work after the restore, or was that an attempt to get it working?
I have had a drive stop working because its drivers got borked by something else I installed (can’t remember what, it was a long time ago, probably old burning software like Nero I recovered from an old PC, me being cheap and lazy). Of course I didn’t figure all that out till I bought a new drive and installed it, and then realised the old one still worked…
Doing a System Restore for something like that is overkill I reckon, though it shouldn’t do any harm. Can take absolute ages to do.
My usual first procedure for desktop PCs that are acting up is to shut down, turn off the mains power to the PSU and hold the power button on the front in for at least 30 seconds. For laptops, disconnect the PSU and remove the battery before pressing the power button. Then reconnect the power (after replacing the battery on a laptop) and boot up and see if it’s now behaving itself.
If not and it’s just a problem with the CD/DVD drive then find it’s entry in Device Manager as above and delete the device, reboot and reinstall it.
Any news @metal-mickey ?
Hi everyone, thanks for your help so far, and apologies for radio silence, I had a funeral yesterday which took me out of commission somewhat…
Anyway, no joy as yet, quick update:
– turning off & on again, even leaving it off overnight, made no difference
– I’ve tried uninstalling & reinstalling the drive a few times with no success… if it makes any difference, I am *not* seeing any kind of “new device” messages when rebooting, the drive simply reappears as it was before
– tried updating software, apparently I have the latest version
– tried lots of brands of DVD-R, none are recognised
– all pre-recorded DVDs & CDs I’ve tried have been OK
– CD-ROMs are OK, both data & audio
– I only did a system restore to see if it would work, agree it was probably heavy-handed!
@harold-holt, were you able to fix those apparent driver conflicts you mention?
All ideas still welcome – yes, the computer is still under warranty, so there’s no worst-case scenario as such, but yes, I’d rather avoid the faff of having to back up everything and be without our main PC for however long if I can avoid it…
I fully understand your unwillingness to be without your PC while it gets sorted out by the vendor. On a par with being without wheels while your car is in the garage, only even worse.
It was a long time ago and far far away. Well, in my old house.
As far as I remember the process, uninstalling Nero didn’t fix it. Then I figured out what brand and model of optical drive it was, went to the manufacturers web site and found the specific driver downloads from there. I installed it which I believe undid the damage of the Nero software.
Don’t use some random site that claims to do drivers. I can’t even remember which brand it was, probably the standard one dell was sticking in their boxes.
I have even had problems with Intel drivers coming through Windows Update, where it borked my sound card, and it took me days to track down which update, back it out and find the right ones on the Intel site, supposedly same drivers but these worked ok. I had even tried getting the same Intel drivers off the Gigabyte mother board site and that version didn’t work either, so go to the source of you possibly can.
Or it could have burned out and be cactus for recording.
PS New info – *authored* DVD-Rs are working OK! i.e. those I’ve assembled on my PC using Flickr work OK, it’s DVDs that have come from our DVD recorder connected to the TV that don’t work, so I’m guessing it’s something to do with how the PC autodetects DVDs…? Thanks again!
Something I didn’t see you mention above, for the discks that don’t work, can you see the contents of the disk in Windows Explorer, see the files ?
Also, it’s not a +/- thing is it ? When they came out there were 2 recordable formats, DVD-R ‘+’ and ‘-‘, and most drives only did one or the other, some did both. The market seemed to go to mostly to the ‘-‘ as I recall. I haven’t used one in years…
Is the TV DVD recorder ‘finalising’ the discs? This is where the ToC (Table of Contents) is written. One the ToC is written, further recording onto the disc is no longer possible.
Windows Explorer uses the ToC to view the files on the disc (as Harold says above). Some burner software (e.g. Nero) can see the contents of a disc before it is finalised.
Might be worth having a butchers at the discs using Isoburner (other free disc/image readers are available) to see if that can find any content – if it can, maybe you’ve bumped into a limitation of Handbrake.
Wasn’t there some kind of limitation on copying, with standalone CD and DVD recorders in the days when these first came onto the market? Also with MiniDisc recorders IIRC.
Not possible to make digital copies of digital copies due to DRM restrictions in either the firmware or the actual hardware? ISTR that there were certain pieces of studio audio equipment that could be employed to circumvent copy protection with audio tracks, at least.
SCMS (Serial Copyright Management System) was supposed to grant a digital copy of a ‘master’ disc (proper CD) to a CDR or MD, but prevent copying from the clone.
A total pain in the arse since many older players would see the SCMS flag as an error and refuse to play the CD.
In practice, anyone intent on making clones would (a) record the analogue output or (b) use a PC.
Some CDs, such as the last album by The Blue Nile, had an even worse copy protect feature added by EMI to prevent ripping to a computer. It didn’t work (EAC ignored it) and upset many CD players (and their purchasers). TBN had to re-press their CD and give them away to irate customers.
Another cheap test you might find useful @metal-mickey – try doing this with some different DVD-R’s, another brand perhaps.
UPDATE!! Having tried the offered advice from the Massive to no positive effect, I’d resigned myself to having to avail myself of the PC warranty to get this problem fixed, but was leaving it a few weeks until we go on holiday, to cause as little home-life disruption as possible…
… but then, a DVD got stuck in the drive, and wouldn’t eject by the usual methods, so I was reduced to doing it manually, by ye olde method of sticking an unfurled paperclip into that little hole devoted to that very purpose… and the drive has been perfect ever since! The only explanation my non-techie brain can come up with is that the lens or disk carriage might have been a wee bit out of alignment, and a “manual” intervention put it back to normal, does that sound reasonable?
(… and ironically @Twang ‘s idea of “Whacking it hard on the side of the case” might have worked!)
Thank you again everyone for chipping in – enjoy the heatwave!