DVD ROM is not reading DVDs

I have Sony VAIO laptop with DVD writer. From past few days my DVD ROM is not reading DVDs, but it is detecting all CDs. When i insert DVD, it is trying to read that DVD and it is on the same status but DVD is not getting detected. DVD ROM is giving some sounds. I am not sure whether there is any problem with my DVD ROM or the drives in my system. I am using XP operating system. The DVD disk which i am using is working well in other systems.

Welcome to Techspot :)

uninstall and re-install the dvd rom drive from device manager. Try a known working disk in it.

If it's an old/well used drive, it could unfortunately be that the DVD read head has burnt out.

you might try checking the dvd region code..

go to device manager... control panel>system>hardware>device manager.

right click your dvd rom drive and click properties. somewhere in there you should have a region tab (if i remember correctly) set the region to US which should be a 1(may want to confirm the correct region code) and of course that is if you use US dvd's..

see if that helps.

USA is indeed region 1

REGION 1 -- USA, Canada
REGION 2 -- Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
REGION 3 -- S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
REGION 4 -- Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
REGION 5 -- Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
REGION 6 -- China
REGION 0 or REGION ALL -- Discs are uncoded and can be played Worldwide, however, PAL discs must be played in a PAL-compatible unit and NTSC discs must be played in an NTSC-compatible unit.

Thanks for your replies.

I have problem with detecting DVDs. It is not at all reading DVD. When i insert DVD disk, it is trying to read that disk and ROM is giving big sounds. But its of no use. I guess region is used to play DVD videos. Moreover my current region is "Region 1".

If I uninstall drive from Device Manager, from where can I reinstall it again? My current DVD/CD-ROM driver is "SONY DVD RW DW-D56A".

Thanks a lot in advance.

Thanks,
kriss

once iuninstalled, you should be able to right click anywhere in the device manager window and click "scan for hardware changes"

Failing that, you should be able to install from "add new hardware" in controll panel, or failing that still, simply reboot.

you just mentioned loud sounds from your dvd-rw drive...... I would say that what spike said earlier applies here then..

your dvd read head may have read its last disk.

I had trouble with the same exact DVD-RW. Hence the word "had" It went up on me and sony gave me a hard time about it.

Now the sony drive is my guinea pig for DVD drive mods.


Sorry

Sean

If your drive reads cd's, but not dvd's That indicates that the hardware works fine. You will need to edit the registry inorder to fix this problem.

1) click the start menu
2) click on "run"
3) type "regedit" and click ok
4) go to string key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5) delete "upper filters" and "lower filters in the right side window.
6) right click my computer in the start menu.
7) click properties
8) go to the hardware tab
9) click device manager
10) expand the dvd/cdrom drives
11) right click the dvd rom and click uninstall
12) restart computer

after restarting, windows should automatically install a clean ROM drive and it should read DVDs just fine if you have the correct DVD decoders.


Computer services available, call spam removed

I have the same problem and I tried the upper and lower filter thing but nothing changed. I still have the same exact problem. It's a Sony DW-56A.

I'm also having the same problem. I tried the suggestion from Geek Squad but there were no "upper filters", only lower, I deleted them, and rebooted, but my drive still won't read DVD's. Anymore suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm having the same problem guys. I have tried everything posted and the d:' is still not accessible and the i/o device error. Someone has to know how to fix this. This is driving me ape s#$t.

Can anyone help??

Not good news I'm afraid. I also have the Sony DVD DW-56A in a Sony VGN A297XP laptop. Eight days after having bought it, and having copied about 80 or so CD's into iTunes, the drive would not respond even to CD ROM's. I did everything Sony asked including a full recovery. They took it back and replaced it.

One year on, it's making the same unhealthy sounding noises it did went it began to fail. Only now it will only read CD's not DVD's. I've resigned myelf to the fact that it's bust again.

MY QUESTION IS THIS......Is it possible to have it replaced with a DIFFERENT drive (compatible)? It's now out of warranty so I would have to pay Sony 12.50 Sterling to get an answer.

replacing a DVD drive in a laptop is a little more difficult. Most compments are custom made. You might find a third party seller, but it's unlikely. It's worth taking a look though.

If your drive reads cd's, but not dvd's That indicates that the hardware works fine. You will need to edit the registry inorder to fix this problem.


Hello, I have a VAIO laptop model VGNA290F with CD/DVD RW sony DVD RW DW-D56A PFS3 with a similar problem, I can read Data CDs and play DVD´s apparently without any problem, but I cant play Audio CD´s. Actually It´s strange because it plays the CD but after 1 or 2 minutes it just stops playing the song. When I try to play a different track sometimes it does the same other times it won´t play anything else until I reboot.

My question is, can this be a hardware problem? I´d thought that if this is the case it won´t play anything at all, so I consider a software problem but I am not sure. Please help! :confused:

I have tried without success the following:
- Cleaning CD Lens with a dry q-tip
- Uninstalling Nero 7 and InCD
- Uninstalling AnyDVD
- Updating firmware
- changing to different (non scratched) audio cds

Any help would be G R E A T L Y Appreciated fellows

Thanks in Advance

most likely a hardware problem. instead of replacing my internal i went with an external made by plextor. Good Luck.

I also have a Sony Laptop - VGN-A297XP with a sonyDVD RW DW-D56A. Its ten months old and I have given the dvd drive regular use copying CDs etc.
Last week it stopped recognising CDs and DVDs, tried cleaning the heads etc with no joy.
Rang Sony servise as its still under warrenty and using the vaio-link website www.vaio-link.com/ updated my optical driver. Once rebooted it recognises CDs but not DVDs.
Mr Sony service centre tells me he is 99% certain the DVD laser is gone and the next step is to backup all my data and send it back for repair.

After reading all the other comments about the sonyDVD RW DW-D56A its clear its crap and after paying a lot of money for the computer i'd think twice about buying again from Sony. My Sony sI also have a Sony Laptop - VGN-A297XP with a sonyDVD RW DW-D56A. Its ten months old and I have given the DVD drive regular use copying CDs etc.
Last week it stopped recognising CDs and DVDs, tried cleaning the heads etc with no joy.
Rang Sony service as its still under warranty and using the vaio-link website "www.vaio-link.com/ " updated my optical driver. Once rebooted it recognises CDs but not DVDs.
Mr Sony service centre tells me he is 99% certain the DVD laser is gone and the next step is to backup all my data and send it back for repair.

After reading all the other comments about the sonyDVD RW DW-D56A its clear its crap and after paying a lot of money for the computer i'd think twice about buying again from Sony. My Sony soundsystem broke down as well recently 18months after I bought it!
oundsystem broke down as well recently 18months after I bought it!

Have been reading the posts above with interest. I have a Sony Vaio VGN-A317M laptop with Sony DVD RW DW-D56A drive but it has recently developed the opposite problem - it can read DVD disks but not CDs! I've uninstalled it, updated firmware but no change. Does this mean the CD laser has died?

it would appear that your cd is done. May it RIP. I ended up just going with an external drive that I use at home. Good Luck.

I have the same model dvd burner, and i have the following problem.

I can read all DVD discs, but not any CDs, especially home-pressed data discs. Does anybody know if the DVD read head and the CD read head separate, or are they the same thing?

If the CD read head is dead, would I still be possible to read DVD as in my case?

Thanks.

I have a similar problem.

my burner reads and burns cd's without a hitch
it reads dvd's just fine but when i put a blank dvd in it tells me that it is full
and i have three computers that all have the same problem.

can anyone help?

You may try to update the firmware...

Lookup in manufacture's site.

Sen.

i have allready updated it and also tried 11 different brands of disc as someone suggested it to me that sometime discs are dodgy and it may cause the burner to hissy on particular brands of disc.

do you have any other suggestions?

Hi everyone, did any of you guys on the forum have any luck solving this problem?

My girlfriend has recently bought a Dell Lattitude D610 with a DVD-RW combo drive. The drive is in fact a Sony DW-Q58A.

I have exactly the same problem I suppose. The drive reads and burns fine all kinds of CDs. After booting the first DVD I put in is read fine and can be used normally. When I take this one out and try to put another DVD in the drive spins for a short while and does nothing more.

When I open Windows Explorer the hour glas pointer is constantly on and I can't access the contents of the DVD. I was patient once and left the DVD in for about 5 minutes and after that time it seems like the DVD is actually being read just damn slow. After another 5 minutes you can see autostart window showing up. After another 5 minutes the first folder on the DVD is displayed. And so on and on...

Any ideas what is the reason of this annoyance and possibly ideas for fixing the problem?????

I reinstalled the licensed OS (XP Prof) twice, installed all the drivers from Dell support site and it is still the same.

PLEASE HELP :(((

I'll be trying out all your ideas (removing filters and installing new firmware for the DVD drive) tonight and will let you know if that helped. In the mean time any ideas are welcome.

I have tried updating the firmware but interestingly the firmware downloaded from the Sony website didn't recognise the drive :(

I tried uninstalling the drive and reinstalling it but that didn't help for long.

Finally I disabled the DLA functionality. (I was using Sonic DLA) and after disabling it the drive reads all DVDs and CDs with no problem. At least so far. :)

Hello all. I wanted to add to your postings, and bay my own distain with a similiar suituation. We recently inherrited an IBM ThinkPad laptop computer. I re-installed windows, as the old system was horribly and errivisably corrupt. Upon doing so, and re-installing ( i used win ME) the DVD rom drive in the laptop suddenly decided to become a cd- rom drive. In the device manager, it appears under CD Rom Drives as what it is -- Mit****a DVD Rom SR 8175.
However, under My Computer, it appears as Compact Disk Drive D. Sugestions? Questions? Comments??? I have un-installed this device, and re-installed it from the device manager... nothing is helping. DVD 's are not recognized, and CD's can play. The thinkpad we have is an A22 model.... Worse yet, Panasonic, the makers of this DVD Rom, have left it behind in their product line, so there is no more support for this drive available, including drivers.... Please..... help if you can! : (
Thanks
Jane

Mits hi ta DVD Rom... why wont it let me write the name of the drive?? the previous should have appeared as all one word.. but it appears to have been censored.. hopefully this will work.
Jane

I have a sony a290 and my dvd cant read cd or dvd can someone help me out to get the drive to work.

Hello, I have a VAIO laptop model VGNA290F with CD/DVD RW sony DVD RW DW-D56A PFS3 with a similar problem, I can read Data CDs and play DVD´s apparently without any problem, but I cant play Audio CD´s. Actually It´s strange because it plays the CD but after 1 or 2 minutes it just stops playing the song. When I try to play a different track sometimes it does the same other times it won´t play anything else until I reboot.

My question is, can this be a hardware problem? I´d thought that if this is the case it won´t play anything at all, so I consider a software problem but I am not sure. Please help! :confused:

I have tried without success the following:
- Cleaning CD Lens with a dry q-tip
- Uninstalling Nero 7 and InCD
- Uninstalling AnyDVD
- Updating firmware
- changing to different (non scratched) audio cds

Any help would be G R E A T L Y Appreciated fellows

Thanks in Advance
this sounds like more of a driver/ software issue.

hello all . jambo as we say in kenya .
i have a sony vaio VGN-A417M with a SONY DVD RW DW-D56A drive
after a recording it stopped reading CD ROMs and AUDIO / Music CDs
it plays DVDs just fine. i've tried everything from the suggestions above and from the sony vaio site.. this is driving me nuts.. anyone been able to sort out this .. i'd really be obliged .. thank you ..best for the festive season to all ..rgds.. sharad

I have tried updating the firmware but interestingly the firmware downloaded from the Sony website didn't recognise the drive :(

I tried uninstalling the drive and reinstalling it but that didn't help for long.

Finally I disabled the DLA functionality. (I was using Sonic DLA) and after disabling it the drive reads all DVDs and CDs with no problem. At least so far. :)

Hello ! please excuse my ignorance .. but i Have Sonic on my laptop too ! how does one disable the DLA ...
thank you
rgds
sharad

I had a very similar problem with my dvd player. If I inserted a disk and tried to double click the drive in My Computer I would get an 'Incorrectt Function' error. Tried uninstalling the device and let the system find it again and still had the error. This is how I fixed it:
1. Right click My Computer and click Manage.
2. Click on Device Manager and right click the dvd drive and then click Properties.
3. Go to the Driver tab and click Driver Details. You should see:
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\cdrom.sys
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\imapi.sys
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\redbook.sys
C:\Windows\System32\storprop.dll

If you see any other drivers listed follow the path to the folder (write down the name of the file without the .sys) and delete the file.
4. Start > Run > regedit
5. Search for the file name (eg if the driver file was named PxHelp20.sys search for PxHelp20) and delete any values found.
6. Go back to Device Manager, right click the dvd drive and click Uninstall.
7. Reboot and this should fix it.

I have the same problem.
My SONY VAIO laptop DVD RW DW-D56A drive can write sony's brand DVD+R disk without problem, but if I insert the disk and try to double click the drive in My Computer, it seems that the drive spins for a while and does nothing more. The same disk I can read Ok with my another desktop PC.
To humberman :
May you help me, I can not understand the step 5 of your post
"..Search for the file name ...PxHelp20.sys ... and delete any values found."
Actually, I found the name PxHelp20.sys in the Driver Details Properties.
Do you mean only the key : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PxHelp20
or everything that I found in the registry?
I did found a lot of keys and values with the word "PxHelp20" in the registry.
Thanks in advance.

If your drive reads cd's, but not dvd's That indicates that the hardware works fine. You will need to edit the registry inorder to fix this problem.

1) click the start menu
2) click on "run"
3) type "regedit" and click ok
4) go to string key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5) delete "upper filters" and "lower filters in the right side window.
6) right click my computer in the start menu.
7) click properties
8) go to the hardware tab
9) click device manager
10) expand the dvd/cdrom drives
11) right click the dvd rom and click uninstall
12) restart computer

after restarting, windows should automatically install a clean ROM drive and it should read DVDs just fine if you have the correct DVD decoders.


Computer services available, call 1800geeksquad

Will this work if the drive reads dvd's as cd's? See http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?p=515143

I recently purchased (by mistake) an OEM Liteon LH-20A1H-185 20X Internal Dual Layer Lightscribe DVDRW and installed it in my pc. As soon as I powered on, Windows XP found it and it was recognized in "My Computer" as a DVD drive. Next I purchased some blank DVD+RW disks and put one in so that I could move clutter off of my HDD. Well, it doesn't see the DVD as a DVD, and instead sees a cd with the capacity of a cd. I checked the driver and it seems that I have the latest version. What can I do to get this thing working right?

thanks geeksquad 851, your directions solved my problem, which was that the DW-56A DVD drive did't show up in the windows explorer. (Error Code 19, corrupt registry info)

i uninstalled alcohol 120 and winoncd (the problem occured roughly around the time of winoncd's installation (on a custom xp version)), deleted the upper and lower filters in the registry and rebooted; the drive showed up again.

thanks so much for saving me a reinstallation.