Arrrgggh DVD R/W reads CDs but not DVDs???

[Pb Dynamic$]

XP Home
Fresh Format Install
Everything works except it's telling me there is no DVD ROM in the drive when there is.
I've done umpteenth format installs on friends machines and never come across this, I don't have it close by at the moment but tonight I will be checking DMA setting in Device Manager, has anyone got any other ideas?

The title says it all, does anyone have any ideas straight off the bat?

[setarip_old]

The DMA setting will not affect the system's ability to "see" the drive...

Try using the "Add new hardware" function from the Control Panel...

[Revgen]

Have you tried putting your drive into another computer?

[Pb Dynamic$]

The system can see the drive.

The drive works no worries, I installed XP from CD using the drive.

It will read any CD without a problem.

If I put a DVD in XP is telling me there is nothing in the drive.

[CWR03]

Have you installed Roxio? Older versions disable the auto-insert which will keep Windows from recognizing most disks. If you can right-click the drive to eject, then refresh, right-click again and refresh again, then insert a DVD and refresh again to finally have it read it, that's your problem.

[Pb Dynamic$]

Cheers all.

Nope, no Roxio...

I will try substituting drives tonight, suffice to say I'm pretty confident there's nothing wrong with the drive itself. Does a DVD Rom use a different laser to read CDs or DVD media? I thought it was one and the same.

[Revgen]

DVD's use a different laser than CD's. It could be a laser failure.

[setarip_old]

@Pb Dynamic$

If the drive has seen a lot of use, you might want to try running a DVD/CD cleaning disc on it. Maxell makes one that retails for approximately $10US...