dvdrw not working

Hi

i have an hp compaq 6720s laptop and the dvd rw has stopped reading or writing to dvd, i uninstalled the drivers and when it reinstalls it says it has found a cdrom, it will still play cd's/roms, i have tried the upper lower filters and that didnt make a difference either, its actually reading as a dvdrom in my computer. Any ideas? its almost 2 yr old but i wanted to check if theres anything else i could try before i dismiss it as broken.

 

a couple of things to try...

1. maybe disable the DLA functionality. To disable DLA in Windows XP:

1. Right-click the drive name in My Computer.
2. Select Properties from the shortcut menu.
3. Click the DLA tab on the Properties dialog box.
4. Click the "Enable DLA on your drives" checkbox until
the checkmark disappears.
5. Click OK.

or ...........................................................

2. f your drive reads cd's, but not dvd's That indicates that the hardware works fine. You will need to edit the registry inorder to fix this problem.

1) click the start menu
2) click on "run"
3) type "regedit" and click ok
4) go to string key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5) delete "upper filters" and "lower filters in the right side window.
6) right click my computer in the start menu.
7) click properties
8) go to the hardware tab
9) click device manager
10) expand the dvd/cdrom drives
11) right click the dvd rom and click uninstall
12) restart computer

after restarting, windows should automatically install a clean ROM drive and it should read DVDs just fine if you have the correct DVD decoders.

 

i have checked the properties box and there is no dla tab, i found the registry key but im not sure what u mean by lower and upper filters?

 

if they are not showing than they are not there. that is all I could think of at the top of my head.

you could try a system restore instead of a clean install, depending on when you noticed this problem started, like if you installed nero or something.

you can also try going to start menu, run and type the command devmgmt.msc

click to expand your dvd drive and uninstall restart pc and see what happens.

Worst case scenario is to back up all your files and do a clean install. It may be a hardware problem, the only way is to put another one in and check it.

 

DVD burners have one laser for CDs and one laser for DVDs. So it is very possible for a burner to work fine with a CD but not a DVD.