CD/DVD Drive Not Working

[nickc]

Friends computer was working fine. Then a few days ago he put a DVD in his PC and nothing happened. You can go to My Computer and see it's there, and when you double click the icon it shows a VIDEO_TS folder, there are some video files within that folder.

I've done a bit of searching on Google and a lot say make sure Autoplay is enabled, which it is. Any ideas? A weird thing is if you right click on the DVD icon there is an option there to 'Take Ownership', when clicked it just shows a CMD window for a millisecond. I think he's been messing with UAC (which I've now disabled).

Thank you

[scrivz69]

Try uninstalling it via device manager and rebooting and see if windows installs new drivers for it, if not it's bust lol. Cheap enough to replace. Or try another sata cable.

[michaelkenward]

And try a different media player to see if that helps. Maybe Windows Media Player, if that is what he uses, got bust.

If they can see the media files on this disk, then it doesn't sound like a hardware failure.

Disabling UAC, apart from being a bad idea in general, shouldn't wreck things.

[wonderlust]

In the early days of DVDs installing CD UDF software would stop DVDs being read. Its not got some old software on it. A long shot I know.

[nickc]

Tried different cables, uninstalling drive and reinstalling. Same with drivers. Nothing.

Also tried different players. VLC can read the title screen but you cannot click on anything. He uses Windows Media Player usually.

Can you elaborate wonderlust?

Thank you all for recommendations so far.

[TheMadDutchDude]

UAC is the most ****ing annoying thing ever put into Windows.

"Are you sure you want to install this?" ... yes? "Are you really sure, though?" YES!

It's just like those "confirm your age" things: "Do you hereby confirm that you are 18 years of age or older?" .... come on.

Back on track. Surely if you just open the VIDEO_TS folder and open the file within there, the movie, it will launch? Short of a reinstall, I have no idea how to fix it. Sorry.

[FunkY]

Disabling UAC, apart from being a bad idea in general, shouldn't wreck things.

A bad idea? UAC is the bad idea... Constantly pesters the user "Do you really want to install this software who's installer you've just tried launching?" or "Do you really want to launch that software who's shortcut you've just double clicked?" It's touted as a security feature, but it doesn't actually do anything useful; just open endless pop ups asking if you're sure you want to do something...

[Aaron]

It did that in vista, but I find it's really not intrusive in 7/8. It asks once if there are certain things you want to do like installing software, but other than that, it just sits in the background not doing much.

[michaelkenward]

It did that in vista, but I find it's really not intrusive in 7/8.

Absolutely. The "disable UAC" advice usually comes from people who think they know a lot about computers but really are fooling themselves.

UAC was indeed a badly implemented idea, but it is one that Microsoft has gradually tweaked to make it less user hostile.

I took my lead on this from a seriously competent software writer who spends his life developing and testing Windows software, and troubleshooting problems with other programs. When he warns against turning off UAC, and leaves it on himself, I take him seriously.

Here is what he suggests:

We have always viewed UAC as a commendable (if poorly-executed) attempt to improve the security of Windows, and we recommend both a) leaving it turned on, and (in Windows 7 or above) b) changing the level in User Account Control Settings to Always notify.

Oh, he is also no great fan of registry cleaners and some of the other tools that "amateur experts" promote.