Bad DVD drive?

**HorseArcher** · September 30, 2006, 06:31 AM

Some of the other threads I posted, I wrote some problems I've been having (windows vista thread etc).

Yesterday I tried to play a brand new DVD and the DVD drive refused to run it. So i thought the DVD is bad. Then i put in a movie I had (star trek: nemesis) and it did play but only for a few minutes, and the screen froze on me. Usually happens if I got a big smudge or a scratch on the DVD. So I cleaned it, even though I didn't find any smudge or giant scratch and tried playing it again. It played for a few minutes and froze again. Then I figured, that those small scratches might be effecting my drive worse than I thought.

Out of curiousity, i tried it with my brother's PC dvd and the disk played fine. I also tried some other DVDs I thought were bad and they all played fine on my brother's DVD drive.

Sounds like my DVD drive is a trash? What's the life expectancy of these DVD drives?

**Freddie** · September 30, 2006, 07:00 AM

Originally Posted by Archer

Some of the other threads I posted, I wrote some problems I've been having (windows vista thread etc).

Yesterday I tried to play a brand new DVD and the DVD drive refused to run it. So i thought the DVD is bad. Then i put in a movie I had (star trek: nemesis) and it did play but only for a few minutes, and the screen froze on me. Usually happens if I got a big smudge or a scratch on the DVD. So I cleaned it, even though I didn't find any smudge or giant scratch and tried playing it again. It played for a few minutes and froze again. Then I figured, that those small scratches might be effecting my drive worse than I thought.

Out of curiousity, i tried it with my brother's PC dvd and the disk played fine. I also tried some other DVDs I thought were bad and they all played fine on my brother's DVD drive.

Sounds like my DVD drive is a trash? What's the life expectancy of these DVD drives?

It's hard to say what life expectancy of a DVD drive is. I myself brought my first DVD writer just over a year ago, it’s an LG model and I've suspected it to faulty form day one. The problem seems to be when it needs to read a disc, it's seems to stop and start all the time and it's not a smooth operation as you would expect from a say from an older CD-Drive. In fact just yesterday I was installing Half Life 2 (I've just built a new comp) and it took and age to install, at first I thought it was down to the HD (because its SATA and I wasn't sure if I had installed the right driver when I installed windows) but then I realised the DVD drive was stopping and starting, the same happened when I installed Halo. Do you find the same happens with yours? Is you drive a DVD burner? Can it burn discs ok?

I took the liberty of buying a new DVD burner, I've only just this hour got it installed and working and it seems to be running fine.

**HorseArcher** · September 30, 2006, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by Freddie

Is you drive a DVD burner? Can it burn discs ok?

I took the liberty of buying a new DVD burner, I've only just this hour got it installed and working and it seems to be running fine.
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yes, it's a burner as well. I tried burning DVDs and all of them so far burns without error (according to Nero), but once I start using the disk (movie or data disk etc), I get an error message: "file corrupted". And if I just simply want to copy back a file (like a picture folder) to my PC from a DVD disk, I always get this message: Error""Cycle redundancy check"

**Freddie** · September 30, 2006, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Archer

yes, it's a burner as well. I tried burning DVDs and all of them so far burns without error (according to Nero), but once I start using the disk (movie or data disk etc), I get an error message: "file corrupted". And if I just simply want to copy back a file (like a picture folder) to my PC from a DVD disk, I always get this message: Error""Cycle redundancy check"

Your drive doesn't happen to be made by NEC? :hmmm:

**HorseArcher** · September 30, 2006, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by Freddie

Your drive doesn't happen to be made by NEC? :hmmm:

Yes. I had that one. Disconnected for now.

I have a new DVD ram and it works perfect. (not a NEC drive). This new one is Megastor, supports all known DVD formats, 16X. So far so good.

**Freddie** · October 01, 2006, 06:08 AM

Originally Posted by Archer

Yes. I had that one. Disconnected for now.

I have a new DVD ram and it works perfect. (not a NEC drive). This new one is Megastor, supports all known DVD formats, 16X. So far so good.

Try setting it up as the master drive and instead of using an 80pin IDE connection use a 40 pin IDE connection. I've also heard the NEC run into troubles when they are connected to other drives on the same IDE channel. To be honest though DVD-RW drives are so cheap these days you are better of buying a new one and throwing that one away.

**Tacticalwithdrawal** · September 30, 2006, 11:39 AM

both my dvd-ROM and DVD burner are refusing to read DVDs or CDs that I am putting in them, but the DVD will burn. I suspect that the wiring inside is loose as I've been moving my PC around a lot and that was what was wrong last time.

So, I'd check your wiring first (pull everything out, clean the dust off and then put back), I find that usually works.