DVD not recognised

The drive may be corrupted in Windows.  Uninstall the drive in the Windows Device Manager and then restart Windows and it will reinstall it.  Many time that will take care of flakey problems.  If that doesn't fix it, post back.

Thanks Fireberd.

Will try that and report back.

Uninstalled and rebooted twice but still no luck.

Anything else I can try?

So you have a DVD+RW and a CDRW/DVD-ROM Combo drive???  Will both of them not read DVDs?

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling PowerDVD?

Do the DVDs not start at all or fail in the middle of playback?

When you instert the DVDs how are the drive lights behaving?

Does the icon in My Computer change when you instert DVDs?

Have you installed something that might be contributing to this?

Hey.... I am starting to sound like some Tech support guy.

Venting.....My 4600 had a problem where the video would freeze but the audio would continue.  I couldn't figure it out until I updated my Nvidia drivers (GeForce) and so far no freezes.  Before it was a pain because some Sponge Bob Pre-historic DVD would keep on freezing and my kids who were watching in the study were getting frustrated so of course they kept Dad from watching the movie we had on in living room.  I could stop the movie and "resume from last scene" at it would play OK for a while (20-30) min.  I am not sure if it was the video driver or the DVDs I rented ( I returned the 3 that were haveing trouble before I update the video) that cause the video freeze.  So far so good. 

Back to your issue.  Any detailed information will help the forum help you and maybe help someone else?

Hi Jonville,

There is only one drive, the details I gave was from the Dell invoice. It reads CDs and DVDs and can write to CDs.

Haven't tried to uninstall and reinstall PowerDVD as I did not think the problem was in that software. The machine is only about 5 to 6 months old. I had used it to read DVDs about 4 to 5 times before. The first few times it worked ok. A few minutes after I put in the DVD it asked me which software I wanted to use. Picked PowerDVD as I think it was on top of the list.

Recently noticed I had to load up PowerDVD myself before I could get to read the DVD. Then the last time, it just refused to read it all. That is comes up with the message "no disc loaded in drive D".

When I load up the DVD the first the drive light flashes up and stays on for a few minutes. The disc icon comes up and then goes away. A few minutes later the drive light goes off. If after this I open and close the drive, the disc light comes and goes of quickly.

The only software I have installed recently is the software that came with a new printer - Canon i865, and Windows and Office 2003 patches issued by Microsoft.

Hi Predator,

Need some help in understanding and acting on "uninstal both WMP and Sonics DVD player".  When I got into My Computer hardware noticed what I have is a NEC drive. As the result of previous I received on this board unstalled and reinstalled this drive without luck.  

Hi Jonville,

Tried CDSpeed. It recognised the drive but not the DVD. Tried a couple of DVDs without any luck. So looks like I have problem drive.

Thanks for your help.