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General discussion

DVD with a mind of its own

Mar 30, 2005 10:19PM PST

I have a Toshiba Satellite A35 notebook, which I have had for 16 mos. Recently, the hard drive was replaced and Windows XP SP2, InterVideo WinDVD4, and drivers were installed. Since then the drive will recognized data disks, most audio disks, but when it comes to commercial DVD's it is a crap-shoot whether it will recognize and open it. I have run disk cleaner, uninstalled and re-installed the drive, drivers, and applications--no change. If it was more universal in not recognizing disk, I would just replace the drive. Is there any known fixes for this kind of problem?

Discussion is locked

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Sign of an aging drive.
Mar 30, 2005 10:26PM PST

Usually the owner of such a machine must install the OS, drivers and repeat that about a dozen times before they admit it could be an aging drive. I'm very patient about such, but do try a CD/DVD lens cleaner and find out what the new drive will cost.

Bob

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Confused
Mar 30, 2005 10:44PM PST

Unfortunately, I have done these steps. What confuses me is every type of disk will be recognized by this drive except commercial DVD movies, it may or may not recognize.

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Not confused.
Mar 30, 2005 10:51PM PST

I'd seen this too often. A new drive with it's latest firmware clears it up everytime for me. I know of no magic cure for aging drives and have learned to let people reload the OS and more till they give up and swap the drive.

There is an issue with drivers, but if you are using the restore CD then that's not it either and even so would not result in your issue.

Another nuisance is the DVD makers are playing with copy protections that are showing signs of failing in some drives but not others. There is no cure for that.

In closing, any spyware can have very odd effects. Read http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6142-0.html?forumID=5&threadID=95430&messageID=1086367 for a thorough *scrub* on that subject.

Again, I've cured it. But find the owners reluctant to replace hardware.

Bob