Computers & Networking

[ShadowMike4d4]

My DVD Rom drive won't read DVD discs! I put in a game, or even a movie, and nothing happens.

I've tried everything I could think of or find out.

I checked the IDE cables

I tried changing the letter for the drive

I un-installed the drive and deleted the registry files "Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters" then rebooted so the drive re-installed.

I'm still confounded by this problem, is there anyone who can help me?

[Starflyer59]

How old is the drive? The laser could just be bad.

[justathought]

You might want to check the IDE cables at both ends. On an older pc I built 7 years ago, sometimes I had to switch the cables at the board and it would work. Do you have more than one hard drive? Has it ever worked?

[ShadowMike4d4]

The entire computer is 6 years old almost 7, and it worked fine until recently.

Maybe its to do with the new power supply I put in, I put a 750 watt power supply in to replace my 250 watt, because I recently got a new graphics card.

the power supply is plugged in correctly, and my system tells me the drive is there, it just won't read DVD discs.

I'll give a run down of how putting the new power supply in went:

1) I found out that the plug I would need for my floppy drive was required by my new graphics card, so I took the IDE cable out of the Floppy drive and motherboard, and plugged the power supplies plug into the graphics card.

2) After a problem with my computer not being able to find either the DVD Writer or CD drives, I found the problem was a loose IDE cable, which I promptly put back in place, then my computer was able to find the drives.

3) Afterwards I changed my BIOS a little, I changed it so it wouldn't try to find a Floppy drive, and changed the sequence of booting the system from having the floppy drive boot first to the DVD/CD drives boot first.

4) I started up my system and popped in a disc for a game, 3 different times the drive refused to work, 3 different times I found a solution that got it to read the disc, then afterwards if I put a different disc in it wouldn't work, and the fix wouldn't work a second time.

I hope this helps answer me, but here is another question. Can a device be plugged in to any IDE port on the motherboard? If so, is it possible using the IDE cable to plug the DVD drive into the port the Floppy drive was plugged into might help?

[lordkirivos]

How many EIDE controllers is on the motherboard if there is two, Hard drive should be plugged into EIDE 0 and the jumpers should be set to Master and the dvd should be on EIDE 1 and set to master as well. if there is only one EIDE Controller then the hard drive should be set to master and the dvd should be set to slave

and as for plugging the dvd cable it to the floppy it will not fit, for the dvd cable is a 40 pin cable and the floppy cable is a 32 pin cable so it won't fit

hope this helps good luck

[ShadowMike4d4]

EIDE? I'm not sure if thats it.

But I do know that the DVD drive and HDD are plugged into two seperate ports on the motherboard, but they are right next to eachother.

the cable connecting both the DVD drive and the CD drive(my computer has both, the DVD drive is on top of the CD drive) is labeled, the top plug is labeled "Master" and the bottom is labeled "Slave", so I would assume its automatically set that way.

[justathought]

That's the type of connector that fits hard drives and dvd drives. They are different than the floppy drive, as you probably know.

I've been doing some thinking: if that pc is as old as it is, it might just be going bad... The Soyo board I had started doing random strange things like I said before, where it wouldn't read the drives on one of the slots. Try switching the cables at the board.

[hockeycanuckjc Trusted Contributor]

Ive heard some motherboards limit voltage output, so this may eventually pose a problem.

[ShadowMike4d4]

the computer is a Compaq Presario SR1030NX

the computer hasn't failed me yet, I don't see why it would fail me now. But once I have the money I do plan on getting a custom built system. In fact computer building is so simple I could probably figure out how to put one together without any trouble.