DVD drive not reading anything at all on Windows 7

Hello all,
My drive was running perfectly until i tried to burn a data-dvd disc the other day. It has done it before just fine and on the same day, i burned a music cd.

The drive is: PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S ATA DEVICE.

It all started when i tried to backup one of my .iso files by copying it to a memorex 8x 8.5GB DVD+R with Nero 10. It stopped halfway with some generic error(that I'm sorry that i cannot remember). Being a complete novice, i uninstalled Nero and blamed the program for wasting 8 of my discs .

I tried roxio 2012 next-Once again, it froze halfway through the copy and gave me some error.

I tried ImgBurn-Halfway samething

MagicISOMaker-Made it 100% Burning a disk that doesn't work. (tested in another PC)

After going through roughly 15 discs, i decided to visit the dell support page to see if they had any firmware updates. They did: Windows/DOS based firmware flash update for PLDS DH-16AAS DVDRW.
Release Date: 8/17/2009
Version: A01JD12

So, now my drive has the latest firmware update for it i should be in good hands....(or not)

After that, i tried maybe 2 more failed burns and then my drive just refused to read anything at all. Blank dvds, CDs with data on them (it would show up as a blank Cd...)

I tried the Microsoft Fix it tool about a thousand times hoping that it would work one day...(i'm actually running it right now...how sad. When it gets to this part, whatever DVD or CD in the drive at the moment is read and autorun pops up(i once tried to burn it that way, failed) The MR Fix it will exit and say no problem was found.

Tried CDgone also.

I deleted the uppers filters/lowers filters...i even got angry and deleted them ALL and had to do a system restore to get my PC back to working again...I am sorry if a solution for this is somewhere on the forums but i just could not find it...EVERY SINGLE link on Google is now purple and my eyes hurt. Help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

PC Specs/programs that i think would be of help:

Windows 7-64bit
4GB Ram
PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S ATA DEVICE.
1TB WD Caviar Green HDD

MagicISO/Disk
ImgBurn
Roxio 2012

Jerrydvp said:

Hello all,
My drive was running perfectly until i tried to burn a data-dvd disc the other day. It has done it before just fine and on the same day, i burned a music cd.

The drive is: PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S ATA DEVICE.

It all started when i tried to backup one of my .iso files by copying it to a memorex 8x 8.5GB DVD+R with Nero 10. It stopped halfway with some generic error(that I'm sorry that i cannot remember). Being a complete novice, i uninstalled Nero and blamed the program for wasting 8 of my discs .

I tried roxio 2012 next-Once again, it froze halfway through the copy and gave me some error.

I tried ImgBurn-Halfway samething

MagicISOMaker-Made it 100% Burning a disk that doesn't work. (tested in another PC)

After going through roughly 15 discs, i decided to visit the dell support page to see if they had any firmware updates. They did: Windows/DOS based firmware flash update for PLDS DH-16AAS DVDRW.
Release Date: 8/17/2009
Version: A01JD12

So, now my drive has the latest firmware update for it i should be in good hands....(or not)

After that, i tried maybe 2 more failed burns and then my drive just refused to read anything at all. Blank dvds, CDs with data on them (it would show up as a blank Cd...)

I tried the Microsoft Fix it tool about a thousand times hoping that it would work one day...(i'm actually running it right now...how sad. When it gets to this part, whatever DVD or CD in the drive at the moment is read and autorun pops up(i once tried to burn it that way, failed) The MR Fix it will exit and say no problem was found.

Tried CDgone also.

I deleted the uppers filters/lowers filters...i even got angry and deleted them ALL and had to do a system restore to get my PC back to working again...I am sorry if a solution for this is somewhere on the forums but i just could not find it...EVERY SINGLE link on Google is now purple and my eyes hurt. Help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

PC Specs/programs that i think would be of help:

Windows 7-64bit
4GB Ram
PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S ATA DEVICE.
1TB WD Caviar Green HDD

MagicISO/Disk
ImgBurn
Roxio 2012

I would advise you to do this first.

Using System Restore, go to the point before you installed any other software like Roxio, Magic ISO, Imgburn etc.,

That should take you to the point where you had Nero only and your first burn failure occurred. That will also nullify any inadvertent changes you could have made in the registry.

Once you are back to that position, try to burn the data to a good brand rewritable media.( say Verbatim, JVC/Taiyo Yuden)

(I do not rule out the possibility of the batch of Memorex media you were using being bad. This is the first thing one should do when a burn failure occurs - checking with a different known-to-be good rewritable media.)

If you get any error message during the burn, get a screenshot.

Also go to Device Manager > your optical drive > Properties > General and let us know the Device Status.

Sorry for the late reply.

boohbah said:

the only time i have had an issue with my dvd drive is when i tried nero and the drive wasn't recognized after that.
uninstall nero run ms fix and try burning a disc

it worked for me, not sure about your issue, it does sound rather complex .
if it continues to fail try and get a screenshot of the error message and post it here
perhaps we can get to the bottom of it for you.

@boobah I would love to show you an error report of the failed burn...if only i could get the drive to work even for once lol.

jumanji said:

I would advise you to do this first.

Using System Restore, go to the point before you installed any other software like Roxio, Magic ISO, Imgburn etc.,

That should take you to the point where you had Nero only and your first burn failure occurred. That will also nullify any inadvertent changes you could have made in the registry.

Once you are back to that position, try to burn the data to a good brand rewritable media.( say Verbatim, JVC/Taiyo Yuden)

(I do not rule out the possibility of the batch of Memorex media you were using being bad. This is the first thing one should do when a burn failure occurs - checking with a different known-to-be good rewritable media.)

If you get any error message during the burn, get a screenshot.

Also go to Device Manager > your optical drive > Properties > General and let us know the Device Status.

I cannot do a system restore because of this

Device Status Here

#Using different Cd's: The first batch were 15 8x 8.6 Memorex DVD+R. The second batch is currently 30 Memorex 16x 4.7 gigs DVD-R.

To be honest, right now i could care less about freeing up the HDD space or these blanks...i just want my Drive back. It won't even read my out of the box game CD's. I will be testing with the game CD's from now on. (that way the problem of crappy DVD's will be out of the picture)

**Update, the blanks and every other CD i use work fine in another drive on my old XP system so now i guess we can say it's the drive? But i know the drive is not dead, why would it work when i run the MR fix it?
\

*Edit: Also tried uninstalling all third party burn programs as suggested on another forum and still no luck.

I have a samsung r610. it has some of the most crappy hard ware that i have seen in a laptop. it came with a disk drive that gave me nothing but hell for 3 yrs so i ripped it out and installed another one. and just out of intrest i opened it up and found that the laser was absolutly f***ed. this could be your issue.

ps i can sympathise with you man because i was burinig hirens discs for work (i work at a computer store) and it would f*** each one of them up.

TheDirtyBomb said:

I have a samsung r610. it has some of the most crappy hard ware that i have seen in a laptop. it came with a disk drive that gave me nothing but hell for 3 yrs so i ripped it out and installed another one. and just out of intrest i opened it up and found that the laser was absolutly f***ed. this could be your issue.

ps i can sympathise with you man because i was burinig hirens discs for work (i work at a computer store) and it would f*** each one of them up.

Yea, if i post a picture of how many new coasters (dead dvd's) that i have it will be the saddest picture ever. What I'm currently doing is moving files to a 16gb flash drive then to my old Sony Vaio and burn them there. I was going to take the drive from it but then i totally forgot that it was IDE instead of SATA...

As for the laser being dead though, why would it work when i run the MR Fix it? That's where I'm completely lost. lol