I have an HP Pavilion 7865 (1.2GHz Athlon, 128Mb memory) computer with Windows ME pre-installed. I also have a DVD-ROM drive. Whenever I try to access the DVD-ROM part of a DVD such as a game, I get some variation of the following message:
“In order to access this part of the disc, you must be running Windows 95 or better and have a DVD-ROM drive installed on your computer. This disc will not work in a CD-ROM drive” and then I must return to the main menu.
I am running InterVideo WinDVD as well as Microsoft’s DVD player (both pre-installed) and both programs give the same result.
The movies play just fine. CD-ROM’s and music CD’s play fine as well.
I called HP and we removed and reinstalled the hardware and software properties, but the problem continues. They even went so far as to send me a new computer, but it suffers from the same problem. They were unable to help me beyond this point. I went to Billy Boy’s website and got trapped in several loops none of which were helpful. I am convinced it’s a software glitch since the odds of two computers exhibiting the exact same problem seems to be a bit high.
When I check the device manager, it does NOT show a DVDROM drive, but instead there’s a CDROM drive and within it is:
Mitsumi CR-48X5TE
Pioneer DVD-ROM DVD-116
Anyone have a DVD-ROM drive AND Windows ME? Perhaps a recommendation of a GOOD troubleshooting website?
You should be aware that Windows ME has had a lot of problems, including compatibility problems with things that work in both Win98SE2 and Windows 2000.
If you have a copy, I would recommend scrapping ME and going back to Win98 SE2. Or, if it’s working fine for you now other than your DVD, hang in there but plan to upgrade to Windows XP as soon as it’s available (some time in the fall). It looks like it’s going to be a winner.
From what I’ve heard (mostly in my previous job selling PC’s for one of the BIG companies) the problems you described sound like the result of updating your OS from an earlier version of Windows to WinME. Sorry, it just doesn’t work.
A factory-new PC with WindowsME pre-loaded on it won’t have these problems, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to have put much work into upgrading their current 95 and 98 users. Go back to your earlier OS and wait for the updated version of ME. Eventually they’ll have to fix it. Or skip ME and go to XP if it ever gets released.
I had a VERY similar problem with a Toshiba laptop I had. It turns out that ME was overwriting my Toshiba supplied driver with its own. I had to manually go in and copy my 3rd party driver in after ME was done messing with it. Then it worked.
I went back to Microsoft’s website and altered my search parameters and found a known bug concerning my problem. Seems that the CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives are on the same IDE channel and this causes WINME to see them both as CD-ROM drives even though both units may function properly. I going to perform some experimental surgery by swapping the drives around. I’m gonna try putting one or the other drives on the slave part of the hard drive’s IDE channel and see what happens. This is what the “fix” suggested. Supposedly, this will cause WINME to see the DVD-ROM drive separately and, theoretically, make it function fully.
Before I open the case, I’ll “remove” both drives so that WINME will have to “find” them again. Hopefully, this will fix the problem.