Strange DVD drive problem

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-13 08:47am

I've got a Toshiba SD-R2312 DVD drive/CD-R that's been acting odd lately. It reads and burns CD's just fine, but some DVD's - even ones that used to work flawlessly - aren't being read properly. After inserting the disc the drive keeps making a "clicking" sound without spinning up (the same click happens with discs that do work, but there it only clicks once), the activity light on the tray goes nuts, and Windows claims there's no disc in the drive. It's only affecting some DVD's, and it's not a problem with the discs since all of them work on my other DVD player.

Is the drive dying or might this be something fixeable ?

Post by **Gandalf** » 2006-03-13 08:58am

About the DVDs you're trying to run:

Are they films? And if so, how recent are they?

I noticed my copy of Serenity doesn't work on my PC. I assume it's some weird form of copy protection.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-13 09:04am

About the DVDs you're trying to run:

Are they films? And if so, how recent are they?

The discs I tried so far :

Believe Nothing, TV-series, 2002 -> doesn't work
Spaceballs, movie, 2001 (?) -> doesn't work (but used to)
BTTF, movie, 2003 (?) -> works
Firefly, TV-series, 2002 -> doesn't work

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-03-13 10:06am

Try this(the Workaround, ignore the patches), to reset the DMA mode from PIO to the highest level it can.

If that fixes the problem, Starforce has fucked over your computer.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-13 11:00am

ggs wrote:Try this(the Workaround, ignore the patches), to reset the DMA mode from PIO to the highest level it can.

If that fixes the problem, Starforce has fucked over your computer.

Are you sure about the link, because that looks like a HDD fix. And I am reasonably sure it's not a Starforce problem, because I can't recall the last time I installed a retail game on this PC from the CD.

EDIT : and I don't see the Starforce drivers in the device manager either.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2006-03-13 01:27pm

Bounty wrote:

Are you sure about the link, because that looks like a HDD fix. And I am reasonably sure it's not a Starforce problem, because I can't recall the last time I installed a retail game on this PC from the CD.

EDIT : and I don't see the Starforce drivers in the device manager either.

I'll confirm this separately. While it looks like a HDD fix, it also works for CD and DVD-ROM drives. In addition, even if you've already removed the Starforce drivers, the PIO mode thing will remain until fixed.

You might try cleaning the drive out using a CD/DVD lens cleaning kit. Another thing that might be wrong is something related to the layer change. I don't know what "BTTF" is, but the ones that don't work are all dual-layered DVDs. I've had several drives fail in that way, but they still work fine in reading single-layered discs and CDs. In that case, I wouldn't know the solution, as I haven't found one short of replacing the drive yet.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-03-13 03:25pm

The only solution, if it is failing to read dual layer discs exclusively, would be to dismantle the drive and realign the laser assembly.

replacing the drive and eating the cost of that is probably less hassle. (plus DVD drives pretty much come free in cereal packets these days).

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-13 04:40pm

While it looks like a HDD fix, it also works for CD and DVD-ROM drives.

I'll give it a try.

I don't know what "BTTF" is

Back to the Future, duh

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-03-14 01:10am

Bounty wrote:Are you sure about the link, because that looks like a HDD fix.

It fixes the timeout on any ATA/SCSI device, CD/DVD drives are included in this

EDIT : and I don't see the Starforce drivers in the device manager either.

You need to enabled "Show hidden devices" in device manage because they hid themselves.

It is either something like Starforce fucking the drive over, or the drive itself is physically defective.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-14 06:12am

You need to enabled "Show hidden devices" in device manage because they hid themselves.

Yes, I was aware of this, and no, I'm not fucked over by Starforce.

It fixes the timeout on any ATA/SCSI device, CD/DVD drives are included in this

Ah. I just checked and the transfer mode on the secondary IDE channel (which I presume is the DVD drive) is set to "Multi-Word DMA2", not PIO, so it's probably a hardware problem them. Damn.

Thanks for the help, anyway.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-03-14 10:36am

Don't presume. Check the drive properties in device manager, in the location field there should be info like "Location 0 (Secondary ATA Channel)" or similar. There is no techical reason why the optical drive should be on the second channel except custom (it's another thing if it's on the same channel as the disk).