Trouble with dvd/rw

townman

Hi, My computer is a HP Intel Pentium 4,DC7600,3.4ghz,1gb ram.
It has a dvd player fitted and working,I exchanged this for a dvd/rw,
On my computer the dvd/rw is recognised as drive "D" as soon as I insert a disc into it,it shows a dvd/rw disc on whats inserted but the
drive changes to cd drive "D"and it will not play or let me record onto it.
Any help would be gratefully recieved.

townman

Any ideas anyone.

Dave_C_2

It's not exactly clear what's going on. Please be precise, do you mean the disc or the drive? What exactly does it shows a dvd/rw disc on whats inserted but the
drive changes to cd drive "D" mean?

Possible causes

It's only a CD drive
The disk you put in was only a CD/RW

What happens if you try to play a commercial DVD?
What happens if you try to play a commercial CD?

What operating system are you using?

Dave

townman

It is a dvd/rw and came out of another computer and was working.
It plays dvds and cds.
My o/s is windows xp pro.
In "my computer" devices with removable storage, with no disc in the drive, its shown as DVD-RW drive (D)
but as soon as I put a blank Memorex dvd/rw in the drive the little picture of the disc shows it as being a dvd/rw but the writing alongside has changed to CD drive (D)

Dave_C_2

In "my computer" devices with removable storage, with no disc in the drive, its shown as DVD-RW drive (D)
but as soon as I put a blank Memorex dvd/rw in the drive the little picture of the disc shows it as being a dvd/rw but the writing alongside has changed to CD drive (D)

I never noticed that that on my windows XP home PC!
I get the same behaviour, except it's an Imation DVD+RW. Same with a DVD-R. As the disc is blank windows won't let me look at it or play it.
As soon as I write to the disk the writing changes to "My disk" - (that's the default disc name of the Nero burning program) and I can play it or read the files.

Ok. That bit looks like normal (for XP) behaviour, The problem now becomes why won't it let you write?
Possible causes are:
1) You do know that you need a DVD/CD writing program such as imgburn to write to blank DVD/CD discs.
2) The blank DVD is DVD+RW and your DVD drive cannot write to it (common with older drives)
3) The blank DVD is DVD-RW and your DVD drive cannot write to it. Rare but possible

What type of drive is it?
Start > Control panel > Switch to classic view if it's in category view > System > Hardware tab > Device manager button > click on the little + next to DVD/CD Rom drives and it will tell you. ( Just close these windows when you've finished reading.)

Dave

closed

XP doesn't support dvd writing natively, you need 3rd party software

stilltheone

InCD 6 Free Untick the options to install the ASK software. This software will allow you to format your DVD rewritables.

townman

I am using ashampoo 9.
In device manager showing as LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-16H5S


Brian.

Dave_C_2

Now I'm struggling with your problem. The drive should write on anything you throw at it!

The only things I can think of is to check that
1) the driver is up to date
2) the jumpers on the back of the drive are in the correct position.

Dave