Member Avatar for emwep

Hi,

My boyfriends laptop (Medion) is having some problems with the DVD drive. It will read some burnt dvds (mostly the movies) but not all (alot of the tv shows won't read). It's not the discs, because they worked on my friends mac, but I really don't know what the problem is.

When I put a disc in, it starts kicking over, but gives up, and when I open any type of media player (power dvd, windows media player, itunes) it says to enter a disc into the drive.

I'm not sure if it's a driver problem, or an encoder problem or whether the drive is dead. I tried uninstalling the driver and then reinstalling, but that didn't help. And I have been searching on the net all afternoon, and can't find an answer that works.

If anyone could point me in the right direction (and sorry if I have repeated a question) I would be very appreciative.

Ta,

Em

When I click on properties on the drive these are the drives that show:

HITACHI_DK23DA-40
QSI DVD/CDRW SBW-161

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Generated

Building on ’s troubleshooting ideas, here is a compact, practical checklist to isolate whether the laptop drive or the burned discs are at fault — and what to try next.

  1. Quick hardware test: try a known commercial (pressed) movie or a bootable Live CD. If the drive boots/plays those, the laser can still read pressed media and the problem is likely with how the DVDs were burned. If it cannot read pressed discs either, the drive hardware or firmware is suspect.

  2. Verify what Windows actually sees: right‑click the drive in My Computer -> Explore/Properties. If Explorer shows no session or files while other machines do, run a sector read/verify with ImgBurn or DVD Decrypter (use the Read/Image build mode). A failed read will show CRC/read errors and points at the drive/laser.

  3. Try a clean burn and different settings: reburn one problem disc at a low speed (4x–8x), choose “finalize/close disc” so the session is closed, and enable verify-after-burn. Use a different, good-quality brand of blank media for the test.

  4. Lens and alignment: clean the lens with a purpose-made cleaning disc first; avoid poking the lens. If that has no effect and the drive is 3–4 years old, laser power degradation is common and can cause selective read failures.

  5. Firmware and drivers: check the laptop/drive maker for firmware updates and only apply firmware matching the exact model. Also try the registry fix for Windows CD/DVD problems (backup registry first): remove UpperFilters/LowerFilters under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and reboot.

  6. Last resort: swap the drive. Slim internal laptop DVD drives are inexpensive and replaceable; a successful replacement proves the original drive was failing.

Order to try: commercial/boot disc -> Explorer + ImgBurn read -> cleaning -> reburn low-speed -> firmware/registry -> replace drive. This will pinpoint whether the issue is media, settings, or the laser itself.

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Member Avatar for DenisOxon

Welcome to the site.

If you have burnt the DVD's on other PC's then I find that they are not always readable on other PC's even if you use the same standard for the DVD.

There are two standards for DVD writing DVD +R and DVD-R. Not all drives will read both. So it could be as simple as that.


Plan A is

Look at the DVD media and see what the label says. If some are plus and some minus, try one of each in the laptop and see if they both play. If not there is the answer.

Try that first and let us know how you get on. Then we can think of plan B

Denis

Member Avatar for emwep

Hi Denis,

I knew I would forget to mention something in my initial post. All the discs are the same brand and type (LG DVD - R 16x), so unfortunately that isn't the answer (I wish it was though!)

Hopefully you can think of a plan B!

Em

Member Avatar for DenisOxon

Hi Em,

Plan B

Have you any DVD's from elsewhere, Purchased or otherwise ? If so do these work ?

At the moment the it is not clear to me whether the problem lies with laptop or the machine writing the DVDs.

In summary are you saying that you have written all the DVD's on one PC and some play and some don't ? Yet they all work in your friends MAC ?

Will they all play in the PC which wrote the DVD's ? If so with which software ? (If you are not sure please try)

I know Plan B is a bit long but we'll get there.

Plase try this and then Plan C will be formulated.

Denis

Member Avatar for emwep

The majority of the discs (90%) were all created on the same PC and only half of these work. The data dvd's I wrote on my PC worked, as did the BT disc to set up internet on the laptop (the only one that didn't was one that only the audio works, not the visual, but I think that's a different matter). These are the only DVD's at my disposal at the moment, because we just moved to the UK, so we only have the burnt copies. They all work on the MAC (except the no visual one, just need to download a plugin or something I think) and they all work on the PC at home (though, I can't tell you what software they play on though they would have been created by DVD decrypter or something?). Sorry if this isn't very helpful, but this is all I know and my boyfriend is clueless when it comes to this stuff.

Thanks for your help

Member Avatar for DenisOxon

The majority of the discs (90%) were all created on the same PC and only half of these work.

Is the PC abroad ? If so what country ?

I think we are close to the sorting

Denis

Member Avatar for DenisOxon

hi
i'm doing my final year project in computer science and its an online share trading system, well the topic was gaven to me bcos i would have not chosen it. its giving me a lot of problems,firstly i dont know anything about trading of shares. plz anyone can u give a few ideas.

PLease post this in the correct forum and stop trying to hijack this topic.

Member Avatar for emwep

Yeah, the PC was in Australia, but the laptop is from Australia too, we bought it with us (it's about 4 years old).

Em

Member Avatar for DenisOxon

As you may know DVD's are regionised and if you move a DVD from one region to another then it can't always be read, which is why I thought we were close to solving.

Have just bought laptop with you from Australia ? If you have PC with you try playing DVD on it.


I have found DVD written on on PC can't be read by another. It used to happen with floppy disks as well, I think heads got out of alignment so only original machine could read them.

Would you put DVD in laptop and use windows explorer to see if you can read it. If you can then you need some other software to play the DVD.


Next suggestion if you can read the DVD with explorer is to take one of DVD's to the MAC and have it copied to a new DVD. Then see if that can be read by laptop. Also Get a different DVD written by MAC and see if that can be read by laptop.


Denis

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