An Optical Drive Mystery

Howdy,
My computer was made in 2003 and has XP SP3 Home freshly installed. I have two DVD drives. The D drive is a vintage Aopen 16XDVD-RAM/AMH and the E drive is a Sony DRU-510A. The Aopen is a player only and the Sony is a player-burner. A long time ago I updated the firmware on the Sony. I can't recall doing it to the Aopen. Both DVD drives are beyond the supported legacy's from there respective maker. In the past they both worked without issue.
The mystery is recently I can play store bought DVD's in the Aopen,but not in the Sony. I can play burned DVD's in the Sony but not in the Aopen. It doesn't matter if I use VLC or Media Player. Under my computer, if it is listed it plays if not it won't. The quirk, I received in the mail a while back.a mass produced DVD that looks just like it could come from a store and it will only play on the Sony.
The question Can someone explain why this is happening?

 

Welcome to the forum Off the top of my head there are two main theories as to why this is happening.

1.The drives are old and dying/ the laser is no longer fully functional.
2.Your suffering some form of region copy protection.

If the problem is the former then bin the drive, it's not worth the time, money or effort trying to fix it, there are little token fixes you can try like cleaning the internal components such as the laser and turntable but your talking hours of work dissembling the drive when you can buy one for $5-$10.

If the drive has a region problem you'll need to change the region of the drive to the region you buy your DVD's from, here's a little info and guide on how to do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...us/devmgr_changing_dvd_settings.mspx?mfr=true

EDIT I would change the region on the sony and probably bin the Aopen, when a drive stops burning disks it's dead, it's usually the first thing that stops working.

 

Rikky, Thanks for your help. I rechecked once again to make sure I had the correct region. Region 1 is listed on both optical drives. So I don't think it's a region thing. That takes us to your other thought, a drive optic failure. On the Aopen I can switch between any store bought DVD that I own and play it. I would think that if I had an optic malfunction that it would show up at some point when switching between DVD's.
The Sony on the other hand, I can't play a single store bought DVD. But any DVD that I burnt in the past, plays. Even DVD's that someone else made will play in the Sony but not in the Aopen.
You are correct and I know it that I'm wasting to much thought on two drives that are not worth it. I have had drives in the past that would not play a DVD and when they went they went. Nothing, noda,zip,gone. I keep coming back to the nagging question- why play one and not the other consistently?

 

Few suggestions-

First-Test the drive in a different computer to see if the problem can be replicated, if the problem is the same with a new motherboard and OS I would stop right there a bin it.

Can you confirm the drive spins up and the read light flashes when you insert a DVD? If this happens the drive knows there's a disk in but for some reason or other it isn't reading it so you may have a shot at a fix is if you can get an error code, try this, download sandra lite for the download section. In the benchmark section or under optical drives run the read speed benchmark while an unreadable disk is inserted. At the bottom you might get an error code.

Go to control panel,admin tools, event viewer just after you've tried to read and disk and look for an error code, try to explore the disk then post the exact message you get from windows I would assume it would be a red cross with 'the disk in drive x is unreadable' which just means unreadable disk, usually caused by the disk being dirty.

Are these older ide or pata drives, do you know their rough age? If so make sure they have their own ide cable and the jumper on the back is set to master, also try a different cable.

If these suggestions don't bare fruit and you think it's worth it you can go ahead and clean the lens and spindle if you feel like getting your hands dirty.

Again I would only invest a little time trying to get the drive working unless it's purely for the intellectual challenge.

 

The whole computer is an antique. I am surprised that it has lasted this long for you.

 

Once again thanks,Rikki. I will try your suggestions tomorrow or so. I have another old antiquated machine that works well. I can confirm that the drive spins up and the led flashes when closing the bay door. The optical drives came with the machine in Dec. of 2003. When they were made I don't know. Once again thanks for your interest. This has been from the start an intellectual challenge. I know I can buy a new DVD for less than $25.


Say Brownizs, what the hec do you do to your computers? I have 3 old XP machines that all work well. I'm not a gamer nor an OC. I have an old HP that has 1.1 USB ports. Now that's old. It still works good and I use it to stream Iheart radio in my garage.

 

I usually hand them down to others, or run them to their death. The longest I have had a unit was 12 years before it died a death, as a test unit for router projects.

Gave my daughter my four year old Acer Aspire One A0532h, that has a 64gb SSD, 2gb RAM, and running Win7 Pro 32bit on it. Also gave her the 250gb platter drive that came in this Toshiba Satellite C850D-stn3x1, which both my son & I have the same model.

We will run them until they die a death, or probably hand them down to someone else after three or four years. It really depends on at that time, what I and my son decide when it comes to what we do.

 

Rikky, there should be an ink stamp on the outside, if not, if they pull the cover, there should be something dating it inside, or they can get the FCC number off the motherboard inside and probably pull the date from fcc.gov.

 

Today I took the Sony out and tested it in my other xp machine and the issue followed along. So I removed the drive and put it back. I downloaded Sandra Lite. Ran what I thought was the benchmark optic performance test. This is the error message I got when a non functioning DVD was loaded.
SiSoftware Sandra

Error (5300) : A valid Sandra test media disc (or compatible) is required to run this test! See help for more info.

and this is what I got when I put a known functioning disc in

SiSoftware Sandra

Error (5205) : Seek error. Sector out of disk bounds.

Immediately after that error showed Windows opened to play the DVD.

Also here is the error that I got in the event viewer
Information 7/10/2013 12:14:49 PM Service Control Manager None 7036 N/A MPC
Information 7/10/2013 12:13:24 PM Service Control Manager None 7036 N/A MPC
Information 7/10/2013 12:13:24 PM Service Control Manager None 7035 SYSTEM MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:55 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:49 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:42 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:36 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:29 AM cdrom None 7 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:24 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:17 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:11 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:54:05 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:58 AM cdrom None 7 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:53 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:46 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:40 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:33 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Error 7/10/2013 10:53:26 AM cdrom None 11 N/A MPC
Information 7/10/2013 10:52:41 AM Service Control Manager None 7036 N/A MPC
Information 7/10/2013 10:52:35 AM Service Control Manager None 7036 N/A MPC
Information 7/10/2013 10:52:35 AM Service Control Manager None 7035 SYSTEM MPC


So I am going to take your advice and bin the drive as soon as I come up with a replacement. Ebay here I come.
Once again I thank you for taking your time and apologize for wasting it.
I think when I get a replacement drive I will take the old one apart.

 

The service control manager 7035/7036 is pretty common, the error relating to the drive just means the drive can't find a disk as far as I can see.

The Sandra error "Sector Out of bounds" Is interesting but I can't find any information relating to it, the reason I suggested Sandra was it usually has a description and few fix ideas along with it, a short google doesn't return any results relating to the error.

The problem with most software is that it usually works at a level above the operating system so if your os can't find a disk you will struggle to get software that will find a disk, one option is drive diagnostics from the manufacturer which can take full control of the hardware so check if there are any offerings from Sony or Aopen.

I've never used them, if someone brings me a computer with a faulty drive within about 30mins there's a new drive in there and they get their old one back to dispose of, I don't even keep them. 10 year old drives? I'd say be happy you got 10 years, what awesome drives now get some new ones, same make if possible.:-D

No problem anyway