Need help getting CDRW/DVD up & running

I have taken out my old CD drive and installed a CDRW/DVD drive. It was recognized as new hardware, but my system won't recognize DVD-R discs. Not sure where to proceed to get this drive functioning properly. I am running Windows XP, and have always only had the CD drive. It will play and burn CDs, just nothing there for DVDs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

What is the model number? Are you sure it is a DVD burner. Some units are CD burner/DVD ROM which will play a DVD but not burn them.

 

Samsung 352F CDRW/DVD ROM-it is a combo CD/DVD writer

 

It looks like it is a CDRW/DVD ROM combo. Not a CD/DVD burner. This means it will read and write CDs and Read DVDs but not write them. It should read a DVD-R that has data on it but may not recognize a blank DVD-R.

Picture from the Manual.

 

It came from another hp computer that had it labeled as a DVD writer. Anyhoo, that's neither here nor there I guess. It still won't play DVDs, regardless of DVD-R or just a regular old DVD movie. Media player says it is not set up to play DVDs. Any clue? Grrrrr.

 

If you're trying to play movies, you will need some DVD playback software. Windows XP does not have a built-in DVD decoder. You can use VLC Media Player. It's free. However, if you have My Computer open, and you put any DVD in the drive (including a movie) the icon for the drive should change if it's reading the disc correctly. If the icon doesn't change then something is up. You should also be able to right click it, and select Open or Explore, and view the files and folders on any DVD, whether it's a movie DVD or a data DVD.

While this course of action should be considered a last resort, you can update and flash the drive's firmware. You can download it from this link to the Samsung web site; more info about updating the firmware can be found there.