DVD drive has gotten stupid

Updated my puter recently, added bigger hard drive, new vid card and CPU, and all of a sudden my Pioneer DVD-115 drive will not read DVDs. (Worked fine prior to the upgrade)

Used Maxtor copy utility to transfer system to new drive first, which went fine, then swapped and upgraded the rest. Everything seems intact, except for the bloody DVD-ROM drive. Works fine with audio and data CDs, but doesn't recognize that there is a DVD in the drive, much less read it. Drive is recognized by Windows (XP Pro) as a DVD drive, complete with region settings, and Device Manager says it's working fine (yeah, right).

Running the DVD Windows troubleshooter suggested I needed a software decoder for the drive to recognize DVDs, or an upgrade for XP, but I've already got PowerDVD 4, which is fine for WinXP. Uninstalled that, re-installed, downloaded the latest patch for it, nothing. It plays mpg's etc fine from the hard drive, but doesn't see a DVD.

Chased down and installed a firmware update for the drive, still nothing. (Except that Windows saw that as the last straw, and demanded re-activation).

Removed the drive from Device Manager, and let Windows re-install it, still nothing. (Pioneer doesn't offer a driver for WinXP, as it has native support in XP, supposedly, and Windows recognizes it by correct model number.) Made sure DMA is enabled, yada yada. All fine.

PowerDVD's diagnostic runs just fine, except for not being able to find a DVD, but since the DRIVE doesn't read it, it can't find it.

Any ideas guys? I'd hate to wipe and re-install JUST to get the DVD drive back, as everything else is fine.

Current system is:
ASUS A7V333 mobo
Athlon XP3000+
512 meg of Corsair PC2700
ATI 9700 Pro
Pioneer DVD-115 (16X DVD/40X CD)
Windows XP Pro, SP1a and all updates.

 

Hey,

I have a problem similar to this, although it may not be related, however it's worth it to try it out to see if that's the reason. I have an old DVD drive from like five years ago or so. In the between time there was a development in DVD technology called, I believe, "Dual-Layer DVD" in which the data is encoded on one side, part way through, then encoded again on top of that with a semi-transparent data-layer - thereby saving the manufacturer from producing two discs when it can be placed on one.

Apparently my drive didn't have the tech to support that technology and while i was running DVD's fine on my old OS, when I switched over to XP, all of a sudden some DVDs wouldn't be recognized at all by my computer in any way. Turned out that DVDs I was checking with, I never used before on my comp, yet all the older dvds I played on my system before, worked. I eventually tracked down the problem, and just watch the dual-layer dvds on a regular dvd-player as opposed to my comp.

So how do you recognize a dual-layer dvd? Well there are several means. If your movie comes on one disc, with one side only, and yet you can watch both wide-screen and normal screen versions, you're probably using dual-layer. If you notice two serial numbers or copyrights on that one disc, you may be using dual-layer dvd. If the underside of the disc looks golden, or some strange multi-color, you may be using a dual-layer.

hope this is helpful. be sure you're trying to play discs you know for a fact worked on the old system.

o Draith

 

I'll try a different DVD software player, although PowerDVD was working fine before the upgrades. Other than the different video card, everything is the same as before, as the software doesn't particularly care what clockspeed the cpu is running; both 3DNow Athlons. Same EXACT operating system, as it was simply copied intact to the new drive, same mobo etc. Same movies I watched on it before, and the drive is new enough to handle the dual layer DVD's with no problems.

Troubleshooter and what I could find on the net and in MS Knowledge Base indicate that the drive won't recognize a DVD unless the DVD codecs have been installed in Windows, which they obviously are by PowerDVD. Once the codec is installed, even Windows Media Player can play DVDs. And that doesn't work either. I'm not sure if that Nvidia DVD player is optimum for an ATI card, but I'll definitely try a different player. Maybe that will install the codec properly this time.

It's more basic than just not being able to PLaY the disks, the drive doesn't even recognize that a DVD is in the drive. Clicking on the drive just gives me a "Insert Disk" prompt.

 

Hm. Installed ATI's video player and support apps, and it's built-in diagnostic is saying my drives are NOT DMA enabled, even though Windows says they are. May be some basic Windows confusion.

One thing I did during the drive swap was to go from the built-in Promise Raid controller to standard IDE connection. I wasn't using RAID, and was tired of waiting for the RAID controller to boot during startup. Booting up the new hard drive showed no problems, but something in the drive handling may have gotten confused. I may just bite the bullet and reformat/reinstall fresh again anyway.