I've been getting a problem with one of my computers for a long time now. The problem is that I have a DVD drive that worked for a long time and now Windows only recognizes it as a plain CD drive. I also have a CD-RW drive that works as a CD-RW drive. I tried replacing the DVD drive with a second CD-RW drive that I knew worked and it only recognized it as a CD drive. I swapped the master drive from the CD-RW to the DVD but that didn't change anything. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it?

Thanks!

Try this:

Xp
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm

Vista:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461/en-us

Once complete, please restart

Thanks unfortunately that didn't do anything for my problem. The drive works and it recognizes CDs but will not recognize DVDs. Here's a screenshot so you can see what the device manager and 'My Computer' show. Unfortunately since I haven't posted more than 5 posts apparently I can't post the image so here's the address:

i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee294/ChevyCorvette541/Screenshot.jpg

Oh my DVD Drive says CD as well
This is quite normal, it may have stated DVD for your drive at some stage, but possibly by either a driver update, or MS update or something, it now just says CD. All very normal

What's not normal, is that you say it presently cannot read DVDs (although CDs are OK)
Here's what it means (only)
Either all the DVDs you are trying are faulty (this can be the case if they are all "written" DVDs)
Or the Drive is fauty. Believe it or not, this has been seen numerous times before. Where the CD part of a DVD Drive works, but not a DVD Disc

What to do?
Replace the faulty DVD drive (and whilst you're at it, remove the CDR/W you really don't need it anymore, I know it was put in as a test, well it's tested )

ditto - it's not unheard of to have faulty dvd drives.... actually a lot more common that people think.

Okay that would make sense however I know in My Computer it used to say DVD and I'm pretty sure same in the device manager. I would lean towards the DVD drive not working but what I was testing with the second CD-RW drive was to try and isolate the problem and I got the same problem with the second CD-RW drive which I know works. The second CD-RW drive was not recognized as a RW drive but just a standard CD drive.