CD/DVD autorun - I've tried everything! (except whatever fixes it)

[drwob]

Hello All -

Been wrestling with this for the entire weekend... I have some CDs with xrays on them, and they also include a portable image viewer that is supposed to autorun when the CD is inserted. My CD/DVD player will not read the contents of the CD (not even to show me the files via Explorer). It will, however, play music CDs and DVDs, so I'm thinking the drive itself is OK. The drive is a Sony Q58A.

"What does it do when you insert the CD?" Glad you asked - I can hear the disc spin up, and then I get several quick "chirping" noises, followed by a longer sort of "swoosh" - I'm guessing these are disk "seeks". It acts like it's looking for something.

Here's what I've done to try to fix:

- Tried the same CD in another Win 7 Home computer - runs fine. While I was at it, copied all of the files to that other computer, and burned a new CD - no joy.
- Tried other CDs containing xray images and free viewer, and they don't work in this laptop, either.
- Registry entries: NoDriveAutorun entry does not appear, but NoDriveTypeAutorun is set to x91 (145).
- Microsoft FixIt 50475
- Set Autorun options for all drives in various ways, including, "Show me the files", for any and all types of discs
- Deleted the "Lower Filters" in the registry - can't remember what key that was, now, but no ill effects. The "Upper Filters" didn't appear.
- Searched for new CD/DVD drivers - that results in a msg saying I'm up to date
- Ensured that ShellHWDetection service is running and is set to start automatically at boot
- Checked that no problems with the device are reported in Device Manager.

I'm at a loss. I've copied the files themselves onto a USB drive using another laptop, and put them onto this one that does not read the CD, and installed a free viewer that I downloaded. That works for this particular CD, but without another computer available to read these kinds of CDs and copy them to the hard disk via USB drive, the pictures are simply not available. But my Dad is an orthopedic surgeon - this kind of thing comes up frequently for him with his patients, and he's not a computer techie - so I'd like to get this to work.

There are probably some other things I've tried, too - can't remember them all. So if any of you have ideas to which I have to respond that I have tried that, please, no offence intended.

I appreciate any input.

Thx!

 

[dsperber]

Did you get this disc from a doctor? Might they have produced it with a Mac, and not a PC? Could this software image-viewer program be for a Mac, and not for a PC? Most medical software is designed for use on Apple systems, not Windows.

I had an MRI taken of my shoulder three years ago after a dislocation and muscle tear, and asked the doctor for a copy of the disc he had been sent by the radiologist. Well, despite the fact that I was able to look at all the images from this disc in the office with the doctor on his own Mac, I couldn't even look at the contents of the disc on my own Windows machines.

I think the file system used for optical media on a Mac is unrecognizable in Windows.

This may be your explanation.

 

[drwob]

DSPERBER:

Absolutely appreciate the thought and suggestion, but the fact that I can read these same CDs on a different Win 7 laptop inclines me to think the format is not an issue.

But thanks!

 

[dsperber]

Sorry, I missed seeing that you'd been able to run this disc successfully on another machine.

So back to this laptop, and its problem. Can you see the disc in Windows Explorer? Does it get a drive letter and can you see its contents? Or is it not being recognized and understood by the drive/Windows? I have had issues with AUTORUN working or not with a number of media players, depending on whether the optical drive is ATAPI/IDE, or SATA (including BluRay). My experience is that the older IDE drives don't have a problem performing AUTORUN successfully, whereas SATA drives are a bit unpredictable. Just an observation.

Now just because the program on the disc doesn't automatically start via the expected AUTORUN functionality, this doesn't mean you can't just manually launch that AUTORUN file (or, better still, the program's .EXE itself which should be on the disc as well). The goal is to run the image viewer program that's on the disc, which apparently does work on your other Windows machine.

So, can you actually see the contents of the disc in Windows Explorer? Is there a SETUP.EXE or program.EXE on it? Have you tried manually launching the AUTORUN.INF file yourself?

Now if you can't even see the contents of the disc itself with Explorer, that's something else.

 

[drwob]

Thanks again, dsperber!

It may be, as you phrase it, "something else". The drive will not even show me the contents of the disc in an Explorer view, so I don't have the opportunity to double-click the .exe from a view of the CD contents.

Interesting thought about the ATA drives vs the old IDE - this is, in fact, an ATA drive. However, the other laptop I've been able to read the disc on also has an ATA CD drive - albeit a different brand, so no guarantee that one will behave like another.

Thanks again - I welcome the thoughts!

 

[drwob]

Just a follow-up thought that I meant to include with the last note....again, the drive does fine with DVDs and music CDs. So, again, the ATA vs IDE behaviour is interesting, but I do get the feeling the basic functions of the drive are intact.