Philips dvd burner problem

Hi all,

I'm new here so let's start with "HI" to all of you. I have read through a lot of the threads on this forum and read a lot of laptop reviews from here aswell. Thanks for that. I ended up getting myself a Dell Inspiron E1705 with T2400, 1gig ram, 90gig hdd, x1400 ati(should have gone geforce route..hehe, oh well), and the 8x dvd burner. I was pretty happy with it and am still now but i got this lil problem. Here it is, when this thing was new I was able to play a dvd but recently when I wanted to play a dvd it wouldn't even display the contents of the dvd and windows just doesn't have any type of reaction like error messages or a window that asks which program to use to open it. I tried dell troubleshoot and did everything until it suggested I reinstall windows. Oh, tried the contact dell route and they asked me to do some tests and the rep told me my drive worked as it was designed..uhm, hello..this is a dvd burner and it should at least read a dvd to it to work as designed, but hey maybe they're just geniuses. Interesting idea these guys have for a working optical drive though. I'm currently out of ideas and am leaning towards a reformat. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance for any input. Oh, this is a Philips sdvd8820 if that would help.

Thanks,
Patrick

 

Patrick, try removing the optical drive and then putting it back in. There should be a few screws underneath the optical drive that you can take out - once they are removed, the drive should slide out. Make sure the laptop is completely off, unplugged, and the battery pack removed before you do this. It may fix the problem.

 

Here's your answer:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=181030

Maybe u can update the firmware.

 

was the dvd a burned dvd or a "regular" dvd?

did you try other dvds?

 

Will it play anything? CD, etc. I have the same Philips Drive and I had to do this process once:

"Open regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Now delete the keys:
LowerFilters and UpperFilters in the right pane. Only one key may be present but still delete it.

Now reboot and your optical drive should function again."
(From the Dell Inspiron Forum Thread)

 

Thanks for the quick response guys.

thetick97:
One of the reps asked me to do this and promised that doing this would get rid of all my dvd problems. Haha nope. Done restarting and the filters are gone but still can't play any dvd or read any dvd for that matter. Thanks Though.

drumfu:
I played a regular dvd movie. I also tried other dvd movies but still can't read it. Drive would just keep on spinning and spinning till it gives up and when I try opening D: drive from "my computer", it's empty.

uncleG:
Read that post before through google but its a dead end. I don't know where to begin looking for the firmware. I have also read that the sdvd8820 driver is loaded from windows xp so there are no updates on the driver either. Philips website doesn't even acknowlege the model number, they might have different model numbers for retail and bundle packs.

Chaz:
Tried it your way and windows just started up as it normally would. Still can't recognize dvd on the drive.

I tried going to command prompt and accessing D: with a dvd inside and it says "The device is not ready". I inserted a music cd and it can open it without any problem whatsoever.

Thanks again for the quick response and have a great day.

 

Let's try something else. Go to the task manager (right click on my computer-->properties-->hardware tab-->device manager)-->double click on the cd/dvd drive to expand it-->right click on cd/dvd drive and select uninstall driver.

Then turn your laptop off. Remove the drive and replace it. Then start the laptop back up.

Another option is to call Dell and request a new drive. This is covered in your warranty, and shouldn't be that hard to get a new one. The only reason I suggest this is because on a few other forums, users were complaining that they had the exact same cd/dvd drive and had problems with burning/reading DVDs. To do this, you'll need to call Dell's Tech Support, and since you've called in before about this problem, they should send you a new one within a couple of days.

 

What brand drive do you guys recommend? Sony, Philips or NEC?

 

I always suggest NEC, but that is just me. I have it and haven't had any problems with reading discs or burning any kind of media.

 

Don't you find the NEC drive is a bit too loud?

 

Not really. Most cd/dvd drives are loud especially when they are first starting up. That's the nature of laptops. It really only gets loud when it is first reading/burning a disc and then calms down. In a few seconds, I can't hear anything coming from that area.

 

I have a nec drive and it has a similar problem. It's reads avery regular movie dvd, but when it comes to a data dvds that i have created it takes to long to read or it just appeard as an empy dvd!! Should i go and do all the different thing posted or theres a diferent method for my drive?

 

I have tried 2x NEC drives in my 640M, and although the drive reads things fine, it's stupidly loud. You have to actually turn the audio up louder to overcome the sound of a spinning disc if you're watching a movie.

 

Here's an update on my PHILIPS drive. I finally got windows to do a "found new hardware" thing and it installed the optical drive as cd-rom. I think this is my problem that's why it can't read dvd. Hopeless trying to format I found out as the OS disk is DVD. wow, just my luck huh.

 

I just finished chatting with dell, i think india. He tried to resolve my dvd problem and after about 10minutes he gave up and offered to send me a new drive.=) If everything in life were this easy huh? Thanks for your help guys and oh he doesn't know if they will send out an NEC or Philips drive this time around. Philips is made in china(BEST quality control in the world WOW), do you guys know where NEC is made?

 

NEC is generally better than the rest; Phillips is usually OK; Samsung/Hitachi is OK; Sony is the worst. Personally, I like Pioneer, but it's only available in HP machines, AFAIK.