m17x R2 DVD Drive Cant Read DVDs, CDs work fine.

My disk drive doesnt seem to like DVDs, whenever I insert one it spits it back out 10 seconds later. It works flawlessly for CDs though.
I read some other posts that suggested a firmware update, but I cannot find anything from dell for my drive - PLDS DC-8A2SH.
My service tag is FN3LSM1 if that helps. Im guessing the person I bought this from replaced the drive, because this one doesnt appear to have been offered in the R2.

Any suggestions on what i should do, or where I can find the firmware?

Please Help

 

Have you tried the upper/lower filters fix? There is a Microsoft Fix it utility : Your CD or DVD drive is not recognized by Windows or other programs

You can also manually go into the registry and try to fix it, however I will not be responsible for any damages that you may do to your OS/registry if you try this fix, you should always have a backup of the registry before you go poking around into it;

Go to Start -> run -> 'regedit'

Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

In that folder, delete the Upper and Lower Filters registry values and reboot your machine. These registry keys pick up random values and will make your CD/DVD disappear (even though it physically works) or it won't operate properly.

 

Windows recognizes the drive, and it works perfectly fine with cd's. The problem is only with DVD's and it does the same thing even if I am in DOS or Linux

 

Try Tsunade_Hime's suggestion. It usually works for this type of issues. Since it's happening on both Linux and Windows... it could be the drive.

 

here is a screenshot of the registry info, i dont see upper or lower filters

and the tool wasnt able to fix anything.

 

If it doesn't function in Linux and Windows it's probably a bad optical drive. Just get a replacement optical drive.