Replaced CDRW with DVD-RW,now DVD-rom wont recognize DVDs

I recently reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP on my Dell Dimension 8200 which had a DVD-rom drive and a CD-RW and a Iomega zip drive(never use it anymore) Things were ok until I got a new DVD-RW (Lite-on) and installed the accompanying software which was
Nero 7 Essentials. The new DVD-RW seems to be working fine, but the existing DVD-ROM (Samsung) will not recognize a DVD. I tried putting a movie in, and the light flashes for a few seconds, then nothing. If I open My Computer and right-click, then click open, it does the same thing--drive light flashes for a few seconds, then message says "insert disk in drive".

I have googled this, (which got me here), found a few things to try, but none has worked.

Jumpers: were originally set to cable select, changed to slave/master-
Uninstalled DVD-rom-didnt help- then uninstalled both Optical drives, rebooted
Followed Microsoft knowledge base directions for clean boot-didnt work
Tried to update driver-says it is current

System has been in use since 2002 and DVD rom worked fine until I replaced CD-RW with DVD-RW

By the way, the drive will load CD's just fine.

If I open device manager, it show both drives .

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Blamphous

 

Hello, blamphous

Hmmm - I've not run into this issue before. I usually run two optical drives on my systems; like yours a DVD-Rom and a DVD/RW . . . I always set the Rom as master, and the RW as slave . . . unless they are each on their own IDE channel (or if SATA). Have you tried a good cleaning? Maybe opening the case and jostling stuff around stirred up some dust . . . but the fact it still reads CDs makes it a long shot.

Have you tried unhooking the DVD-Rom from the system, deleting it in device manager, and rebooting. Then shutting down and reinstalling the drive? Another long shot . . . but all I can think of right now.

Well, except you mentioned Nero 7 Essentials . . . this could be a software issue. I've used Nero products for years and not had any problems, but I've never used Nero 7. If it were my computer I'd delete Nero 7 and see if that corrects the issue. If it does, I'd then go to the Nero site and check the forums for like problems and a fix.

 

Does the DVD-ROM work properly if you unplug the DVD-RW?

 

Hin Blam,

Some cables do not do Master/Slave only Cable Select. Maybe?

Good Luck, Jim

 

Thanks for your replies everyone!
Collinsl , I have not tried unhooking the DVD-RW.
Spad, I did blow out all the dust with canned air.
Jlphlp, I thought I read where you can use a cable select cable to configure
as slave/master.

Anyway, I will try all of the above, the last being uninstalling nero, and will let you know the results. Thanks again.

Blamphous

 

Ok, I tried everything you all suggested, problem still exists. Any other suggestions? Thanks for your help.

Blamphous

 

Hi again Blamp,

Some cables do Master/Slave only, Some do Cable Select only. Some do both. If they have color coded connectors or have postion stamped on the cable they will do CS for sure. Big difference between Master/Slave and CS is with M/S the jumpering on the drive determines which is master and which is slave and with CS the position on the cable determines which is which. Both drives on a CS cable must be plugged MS. The main confusion is that CS calls the positions Master and Slave same as M/S. Would you believe that CS was invented many years ago so us Dummies wouldn't have to move the drive jumpers around?

Good Luck, Jim

 

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your reply. When I opened the case to install the new DVD-RW drive, the existing configuration was that the jumpers on both the DVD-Rom and the CD-RW were jumpered to Cable select.
So when I replaced the CD-RW with a new DVD-RW, I jumpered the new drive as cable select. When I booted up the computer, it would not recognize a DVD disk in the existing DVD-ROM drive. So I changed the jumpers to master/slave and that didnt resolve the matter. So yesterday, I changed it back to M/S ,uninstalled Nero 7. Tried it again, same results.
(incidentally I also ran the Nero clean tool, and Nero is not listed in the add/remove programs list in control panel, but there is still a Nero folder with 4subfolders in the My Documents folder(captured video,exported audio, exported video, imported video). Should I just delete them, or run clean tool again?

thanks,

Blamphous