DVD/RW Drive reads, writes, and shows the contents of a DVD, reads and writes to CD but does not show the contents of the CD.

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chris50

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Jun 9, 2014
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4,510
Hello...I've been looking for an answer for this particular issue and I can't seem to find any information about this issue:

System: Lenovo ThinkCentre, 4 GB RAM, DVD R/W (with CD/RW+/-)
OS: Windows 7 Pro (x86) SP1

Background:
I am the (standing-in) IT admin for a department where we are running over 80 computers. Out of all the other computers, this is the only computer that this issue occurred upon. This issue started from day 1...so it is not known if any software that were installed has any compatibility issues or if the issue was from the time of installation. The computer was pre-installed with Windows. All other installations were done over the server, so the CD-ROM was never used during the installation.

Issue:
DVD/CD Drive does not display the contents of the CD-ROM only.
When I open the CD drive folder for a CD with files, it displays a blank window as if there are no contents on the CD, even though there are contents on it. It just instructs to "drag files to this folder to add them to the disc".

What the drive can do:
The DVD displays the contents on a DVD
The drive can read/write to a DVD as well as the CD.

Troubleshooting already performed:
Hardware:
1) Switched the cable and drive with another CD drive with a machine it was working on.
2) Tried a different port on the motherboard.
3) Tried various CDs which included burnt copies of 2 short surveillance videos and a Dell utility/driver CD and a Microsoft Office CD. It seems to read contents off the Microsoft CD (not DVD)...which was weird <--which tells me this is not a hardware issue.
4) Tried all the CDs in another computer and they all work and the contents can be read.

Software/Configurations/Settings:
1) Updated CD driver (driver was already updated).
2) Checked the registry to check for any discrepancies of the drivers registry.
3) Chose defaults on what to do when each media or device is inserted (which is to ask)
4) Rebooting many times (this has been going on for the past 2 years...I've been trying to diagnose and fix this issue for 2 days)

I think that's all I did so far.
Haven't tried reformatting...and quite frankly, I'm hoping this is not the answer:

I hope someone knows what I'm talking about and has a really good idea on what to do.

Thank you,


Chris

 
Solution
U
on a side note, if this has existed for 2 years and you are now the stand in IT admin... if you want to be the permanent IT Admin this should probably be a very low priority or something to get a secondary to work on if you have one. if you don't have any other employees... well still low low low priority. 2 days on an issue that has not been important enough to fix for 2 years? From the IT admin? obviously if you happen to have the time then sure, or if it is suddenly important... but if it is swap the PC as an immediate fix. There are generally far more important things to worry about.
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unksol

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Sep 12, 2011
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I do not understand the question. You say it can read from the CD but it cannot see the contents, but if it cannot see the contents then by definition it cannot read the CD.

I do see where you say it "seemed" to read a Microsoft office CD but could not read burned CDs. That should IMMEDIATELY suggest a problem with the drives read laser which is hardware and the drive should be replaced.

However I also see where you swapped the cable and drive. You don't say the result. By this do you mean you swapped the "bad" drive into a working machine and then it worked. and when you swapped the working drive into the "bad" machine it did not?

If you did not do the two way swap do that first. That would tell you if its the drive. If its not the drive it is the motherboard or the software. You could attempt to boot with a linux live CD to check software. Your other options are to reimage windows or if you have two identical machines you could try to swap harddrives.

If it follows the harddrive it is software. Reimage. Should be trivial for a company with 80 computers. You'll waste more time trying to track the issue than you would reinstalling. If it does not follow the harddrive or appears after reimage on the same machine, and the drives are good the only option left should be a faulty motherboard.
 
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unksol

Splendid
Sep 12, 2011
7,060
0
27,960
on a side note, if this has existed for 2 years and you are now the stand in IT admin... if you want to be the permanent IT Admin this should probably be a very low priority or something to get a secondary to work on if you have one. if you don't have any other employees... well still low low low priority. 2 days on an issue that has not been important enough to fix for 2 years? From the IT admin? obviously if you happen to have the time then sure, or if it is suddenly important... but if it is swap the PC as an immediate fix. There are generally far more important things to worry about.
 
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Solution
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chris50

Reputable
Jun 9, 2014
2
0
4,510
Thank you for your answer unksol. I found one oversight that I have to test and will get back to this post. In the meantime, I just meant about "reading the contents" as to display the contents of the drive in the window. For some reason, it does not want to display the contents...although the CD drive itself actually works and can burn copies. So the question is...why doesn't this CD drive display the contents of the drive?

For this person, it's a medium priority as this does not stop the workload, but since he has to use his personal laptop to do his work instead of the company's computer, this is not a good thing for us...security-wise.

UPDATE:
Okay, I (FINALLY) was able to switch the motherboards with one that worked from another machine but that didn't solve the issue. I am very convinced that there is nothing wrong with the hardware. I cannot swap the PC with another to use, because we don't have a spare at this time. Ideas?? I'm thinking it's a configuration issue. Going to try the Fix iIt or whatever tool. But if anyone knows a more manual solution, please let me know...I prefer to do things manually -- great way to learn.
 
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