What's wrong with my DVD drive? (And how do I fix it?)

Factual Questions
1

Please note that while I can kinda sorta bang around with hardware, I’m far from an expert. I can probably get someone I know to come over and do the actual messing with cables plugs and screws, if necessary, but it’d be nice to have a diagnosis (or a few educated guesses) beforehand so he’s not here all night.

Main symptom: my DVD drive usually, but not always, fails to read DVDs. It reads CDs of all sorts just fine. It also reads manufactured movie DVDs just fine (e.g. the stuff I get from Netflix). However it will not, no matter what I do, read a DVD movie I have that was produced/burned by a student filmmaker I worked with (the disk reads fine in other computers and in my DVD player connected to the TV).

For the most part, if I have a data DVD, it thinks the disk is blank. Sometimes I can convince it otherwise if I open/close the drawer repeatedly and let it attempt to read the disk many times in a row. It might take 4 or 5 tries, it might take dozens, I might just give up before it ever reads the disk.

I’m most commonly working with data DVDs containing photo files (large files, usually JPG, sometimes RAW), but I don’t know if that would have anything to do with it. I recently got a DVD from a client which contained photos, PSD files, PDF files, and a few other things, and that read just fine.

Something I recently noticed, which may or may not be my imagination, is that DVDs that have not been labeled with a Sharpie read fine, but those that have been written on do not. The above-mentioned client DVD is labeled, but with a fine-point felt pen on a relatively small area. My Sharpies are fatter and make thicker lines. I recently burned a DVD full of photos, and it seemed to read fine when I checked it immediately after burning; however then I labeled it, and half an hour later checked it again, and it wouldn’t read. (On the other hand, I have been labeling CDs the same way, and they still read fine.)

Does any sort of diagnosis pop into mind? I can probably do a little troubleshooting myself, to attempt to narrow things down, if necessary.

2

All I can say is that if the disks read ok in other drives then your drive is dodgy. It maybe that your drive is right on the edge of the tolerance band for working, which is why sometimes it does or doesn’t read disks.

Perhaps you are having issues with a particular brand of disk? Changing to another brand might help, though if you’re getting disks from other people this isn’t really helpful.

CDs store less data over the same disk area as DVDs, so the data “spots” are bigger, which is why your drive reads them ok.

Disks you burn use a dye change to store data. Pre-recorded disks have “bumps” or “pits” cast into them to indicate data, which often seems to be more robust than the dye method when using dodgy drives.

Though I find that if I burn at the lowest speed, that can help with making a drive read. But then, my drive is an early dual-layer, no-brand one, so I guess it’s slightly dodgy too.

I can’t see how using a marker pen can effect the DVD. There was discussion that over time the ink would work its way in and damage the disk in some way, but this was something that was going to take years to happen (if at all), not 30 minutes. I’d say it was more of a cache situation, or perhaps the disk after cooling down changes enough not to be read by a dodgy drive. Do disks you burn read ok in other drives? Does your burning software have a verify function?

If you’re using DVDs to back up your data and your burner is making poor DVDs, they may not work in another drive. If your DVD drive fails, your old disks might not be readable by your new drive. If your whole computer disappears (fire/theft/water), your new computer may not be able to read your backups.

The cheapness of drives is means that they aren’t designed to be repaired, so you might was well replace it.

3

The vast majority of the disks I deal with are coming from other people, so I can’t just use different disks or burn at a different speed. The people sending me data will do whatever they want to do. I need my drive to read them.

At this point, I don’t know, because I receive data way more than I give it away. If I’m sending data it’s been small files via email.

It does, and I used it on the disk in question, and it failed to verify. Whereupon I ejected the disk, then put it back in, and it read fine, so I figured the verification just went wonky. Then I labeled it, and tried it again 30 mins later and it wouldn’t read.

The person I burned this disk for hasn’t come around to pick it up yet, so I have no idea if it works on another computer or not.

Not an issue, my backups are on an external hard drive.

How cheap is cheap? I basically have no money, even $50 is out of the question. Aside from the fact that the drive has never worked, and it’s probably too late to try to exchange the part. Sigh. If this is something that can be fixed, I’d strongly prefer that.

None of this explains why the data DVD from my client read fine, either. They burned it themselves, so it would have been the dye change process, but I’ve had no issues at all with it. I’ve used it a number of times and it reads fine every time.

4

You should be able to get an OEM DVDROM drive for $20ish (or a multiformat burner for $30ish) for your local computer nerd store. Seriously, there are ‘no user servicable parts’ inside and they are so cheap that it isn’t worth the trouble.

EDIT: Those prices are Canadian. Probably slightly cheaper in the US.

5

of course, see if you can upgrade the firmware

6

Re-reading the OP, it is to me a classic example of faulty hardware. If the disks can be read with other machines, then the disk is ok.

Weird things happen. Their writer might be just enough out of whack to allow yours to read their disk. Their disk type/burn speed combo was just right to make their disk readable for your drive.

Just to double check on this, the drive isn’t “seeing” the disk, right? If so that’s a hardware issue. Otherwise your machine can see the disk and not play it cos you don’t have the correct codec, which for what ever reason the other machines have. You’re dealing with a student; every possibility has to be considered :wink: I’m sure you’d of caught it if it was a codec though.

Around here drives are about $50 to $60. So at a 2:1 rate, that’s about $25 to $30 in non play-money.

Look around for junked PC’s. Often drives are under-used, so you might get one for free or a few bucks that’s done very little. Even a well used drive ought to be ok.

Just check the connectors your drive uses. If it’s ATA, there will be a wide flat cable with 40 conductors. The plug will be about 2.5" wide. If it’s SATA, the plug is about 20mm wide and the cable is round with 7 or so wires. SATA cables seem to be brightly coloured too, while ATA are grey.

To replace the drive, after the pc cover is off, remove the data and power cables to the drive, undo the usual 4 screws that hold the drive to the case and slide the drive out. To install the new drive, do the reverse steps. Some cases require a bit more effort to get access though. It’s not hard and if you post photo’s, we’ll walk you through it. If I was to do it for a friend, I’d feel guilty accepting 1 beer from them.

:smack: And on preview, what Alex_Dubinsky said is worth trying.

7

The lens that reads DVD is much more finicky than the lens that reads CD. You can get a CD/DVD cleaner for a few dollars; might be worth a try, particularly if your room is dusty or if you smoke at the computer.

If cleaning the lens doesn’t do it, replacing the drive is really the way to go. It is a pretty easy do-it-yourself job.

8

If you can dumb that down to layman’s English, I’d appreciate it.

The drive sees that the disk exists, it just decides that it’s blank and asks me if I want to burn stuff on it.

Well, he has been bugging me about trying that Irish pub nearby… :wink:

Just tried the lens cleaner, no help there.

9

You need to go the the drive manufacturers website and look under the support pages for a firmware update for the exact model drive you have. Determining the model may not be straight forward. But before worrying about that, see if any updates are available first. If there are, then determine your model and then see if any updates are applicable.

I’ve only done it once. It was a zipped .exe that I downloaded and ran. It asked to confirm that it’d selected the correct drive and then did it’s thing. Did it help anything? Can’t say as I did this on installation of the drive.

As with any update, it can bork things and your drive may never work again. Or it might be re-coverable by redoing the update. Main issue is a power glitch during the update.