Hi all, hope someone can help me!!

I've spent the whole day looking online for solutions to this problem and I'm getting close to opening the window and giving my DVD drive a short flying lesson!

Basically the problem is that my DVD drive appears to think it's a CD drive. It will read audio disks, data disks and play some game disks, but as soon as there is any video type thing on it the 'busy' light stays on, the drive letter disappears from 'my computer' and I have to restart the system, pressing the eject button in the split second between start up and the drive deciding it's busy again!

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)

DVD drive: Model: DVD-16X OEM316B Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 5.01.2600.2180 (English), 8/4/2004 06:59:52, 49536 bytes

CD-RW drive: Model: HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8320B Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 5.01.2600.2180 (English), 8/4/2004 06:59:52, 49536 bytes

Now, to me, this says that both disks are operating with the same drivers, and therefore think they're both CD drives! I've tried updating the driver, only gives options of CD drivers; there's no manufacturers name on the outside of the drive case, so I can't check for drivers on their website...

For a moment, I thought windows support could help me, it listed (among many other symptoms):
Disc label does not appear in My Computer.
The contents of the disc will not display.
Inserting or reading a disc causes the computer to stop responding.
The disc will not eject.

However, they then ignored those symptoms and waffled on about totally unhelpful stuff! I know it's not reading DVD data correctly, but if it's reading other data, surely it's not a problem with the drive? I'm confused, female and blonde, so please make any advise bimbo-friendly!

Many thanks in advance xx

I don`t really know the solution to your problem,but you do sound nice.This might be slightly useful http://www.askdavetaylor.com/using_m...indows_xp.html It refers to a cdrom,but same principle.

WOW, for a first time poster and a self professed "blonde" you certainly know how to provide all the pertinent information needed.

There is a good chance that the drive itself is defective and will have to be replaced. but just to be certain that it is not a windows system file problem there are two things you can try.

1. run System File Checker. with the XP disk in the drive open a commmand prompt and type: sfc scannow this will run system file checker and will repalce any damaged or missing wndows system files.

2. uninstall the IDE channel the drive is on and reboot. windows will automatically reinstall the IDE channel adn the drive when it restarts/ You will find the IDe channel in device manager under "IDE ATA\ATAPI Controllers"

Any chance you have an outdated version of Nero on that pc?
When I got my LG DVD-RW it would at first only work as a cdrom cuz my Nero was only a CD Rom version, not a DVD one. I unistalled Nero and it came up as a DVD drive and it could also then read DVD's.

The drive stops responding cuz it's having difficulty reading the disk and is taking so much power to do so. Try the disks in another drive and see if they work propperly. Corrupted or Faulty disks cause the drive to stop responing. I have often experienced this.

This happended to me about 3 years ago when i was a noob. I think the cause may be a very long IDE cable, or incorrect jumper settings on the drive.