HP-dvd640  

My dvd player is not working since I installed Windows 7, I think i might need the driver but cant find it

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Cassandra
Microsoft Windows Outreach

pebbly said:

here is a link to the drivers Select software and drivers HP dvd640v DVD Writer - HP Customer Care (United States - English) win7 should have automatically loaded the drivers for you , what exactly is the problem you are having ? :)

When i try playing a dvd on media center i get a video error

I recently installed Win7 after Vista totally collapsed. I now find my external USB DVD writer (an HP DVD 640v) doesn't work. No driver is installed when I plug it in, and when I search for the driver I find no driver later than the XP one. Nothing for Vista or Win7. Yet it used to work under Vista. What is going on?

The USB ports seem to be working just fine. The system reports that there is no driver installed for the DVD640v and I and the system are unable to find one. As I said, the latest driver on the HP website is for XP. Yet as I said it worked under Vista, totally transparently - I didn't have to do anything. So there is something mysterious.

I have to say this is just the latest example of why I intensely dislike Win7.

There are no drivers for optical drives....haven't been since the DOS days, so I'm not sure why people are looking for them. If you have an error, or the drive isn't showing up, the problem liese elsewhere.

To the OP, what is the video error? Do you have DVD software installed? What version of Windows 7 are you running? Home Premium and up should be able to play a DVD in Windows Media Player.

To peterbj7, it sounds like you need a driver for the controller in the external housing. Have you tried running Windows Update? I would be glad to help, but I find that people who "intensely hate" Windows 7 for a non-OS issue, aren't usually willing to work through an issue...they'd rather just bitch and Micro$shaft and Windblows, etc. I'm hoping you won't fall into this category.

"To peterbj7, it sounds like you need a driver for the controller in the external housing. Have you tried running Windows Update? I would be glad to help, but I find that people who "intensely hate" Windows 7 for a non-OS issue, aren't usually willing to work through an issue...they'd rather just bitch and Micro$shaft and Windblows, etc. I'm hoping you won't fall into this category."


I have checked that Windows is fully updated. I imagine that it is the driver for the external housing that I need. However, it appears that Win7 doesn't support this device. As I said above, I can only find drivers up to XP, not beyond, even though the external drive functioned perfectly under Vista. Win 7 doesn't recognise it at all, and offers no solution.

As to the internal drive, it has been little used from new and has always worked perfectly (under Vista). Now I have Win7 it doesn't want to know.

My reasons for disliking Win7 are more comprehensive than just this. Partly it is because of the arbitrary changes MS like to make with apparently no functional gain. For example, why have they dropped Win Mail, the successor to OE, one of the most popular email clients in use? Win Live Mail is a different application with materially different functionality. And why did they drop "Win Picture and Fax Viewer" in Vista, but re-instate it it Win7? Just two examples. I'll probably end up putting XP on this machine, but I feel strongly inclined to transfer my main computing to Mac.

Which doesn't help me deal with the current problem - I have a program on CD that I need to load and run for my business, but I can't get the computer to recognise the two optical devices I have. I'm tearing my hair out here.

You need to understand why certain apps are included or removed in each version of Windows. They are usually done so, one way or another, due to either a threatened lawsuit, or overall user feedback. You may complain about the Mail program, but I prefer it to not be included, but be available for download if I choose to use it. I don't like having extra software on my computer that I don't use. See the point? If you want to use it...it's a simple download. If not, it isn't on your system. Everyone wins. I believe Microsoft might be taking this concept a step further by including an App Store in the next version of Windows, but I'm getting off topic. Those few little apps are hardly a reason to like or dislike a very good, make that great, OS.

I did some quick Googling before I left work, and found people who are able to use that drive on Windows 7. If it doesn't have specific drivers available for the controller, then it should just work. You also may have misinterpreted my Windows Update comment. I wasn't asking if the OS was up to date. I assumed it was obvious that I meant to run Windows Update with the drive connected, but I guess it wasn't that obvious. Give that a shot. Windows Update includes a huge number of drivers that aren't included on the DVD.

Also, I may have missed something, but what internal drive are you trying? If that doesn't work, then you really have something strange going on with the OS. It wasn't a hacked install, or one done with vLite, was it?

As a side note, when you quote someone, use the quote button...it separates out the part you are commenting on, making for an easier read.