A Very Strange Problem with DVD Drive (Not playing some DVDs)

Hi Tamerr,

Please insert a DVD that will not play. Once inserted, open file explorer. Then try viewing the contents of the disk by clicking the drive letter of your DVD in the left pane. You should see a couple folders in the right pane. Let me know what you see or if you get some sort of error.

Thank you very much for helping.

When I do this, I see a dialog box, which I can translate as "please insert a disk".

Actually the problem is that, when a disk is played, I can understand this from the sound. If a disk is played, it just rolls for one time and then immediately the dvd drive reads it. But if a disk is not played, it rolls one time but not played, then it rolls a second and a third time and then dvd drive does not sound like it is reading the disk.

After searching through many websites and forums on the web, I reached this conclusion below (please tell me if you agree or not :])  :

It seems that many people around the world had the exact same problem as me and I realize that many of these people have a Dell laptops. Some of these people comment that some laptop manufacturers (Dell in this case) put low quality dvd drives into their laptops in order to "cut corners". As a result, these cheap, low quality dvd drives cannot play some dvd disks (especially original movie disks, because many people have problem with these kind of disks). I agree with this result because my newly purchase original dell dvd drive has exact same problem, therefore the problem is not a mechanical one particular to my single dvd drive, but rather a problem across all the dvd drives of this model. So, I think I must purchase a new third dvd drive to solve this problem, but this time not an original dell dvd drive, but any model from LG, Samsung or something like that. I have to solve this problem because I have many dvd disks that I want to play but I can't.

And I hope a new dvd drive from another brand can fit my laptop and my laptop's dvd drive bezel (i.e. face plate). I don't know what to do if the my bezel doesn't fit to a new dvd drive...

You didn't explicitly say it so I'm going to ask, Does a given title that (always) failed in the original drive, also always fail in the new drive?

Did you look at the labels on the optical drives? did they come from the same manufacturer? Do the disks that fail have anything in common? (maybe certain studios are adding additional copy protection that your drive doesn't like, maybe it has issues with dual layer disks.)

It doesn't look like the optical drive in your notebook is hot-swapable, which actually will make it easier to use a third-party internal drive, as the drive itself will not be enclosed in any proprietary shell.

If the replacement drive looks like this:

http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=16297

the replacement will probably be recessed and not have the extra plastic thickness on the exposed edge

*** for some reason clicking the link does not show the photo. copy and paste the url and you will see the picture.***

Timotheusd, I really thank you very much for all the help.

- If a dvd disk fails to play in my old dvd drive, it also fails to play in my new dvd drive. Or if a dvd disk plays in my old dvd drive, it certainly also plays in my new dvd drive. So, there is a consistency in this sense.

- My newle purchased dvd drive is ordered from official dell distributor company in my country and the new dvd drive is exactly same as my old one and it is original.

- Certainly there is no problem with dual-layer because some of the disks that play are dual layer (they have 7.7 or 6.5 gb of data so I think they are dual-layer, right?)

- I think you determined a very important point that can explain this strange issue. As you mentioned, some dvd disks that don't play have something in common. For example, I have the documentary series "Planet Earth", "Human Planet" and "Blue Planet", all of which are from BBC. These three documentary consist of about 15 dvd disks and none of them play! But they are not the only disks that don't play. For example, a movie called "1492 Conquest of Paradise" or another movie "Cakallarla Dans" and some others also don't play. On the other hand, the tv series "Viking" (3 disks), movie "Lord of the Rings" (3 disks) or Godfather (3 disks) always play, all the disks. So, there must be some common features in the disks that play and that don't play because all of them (played or not) come from the same producers. But please note that disks that don't play are from several producers, so it is not a problem associated with a single producer. And lastly, all those disks that don't play easiy play in my other two computers.

And as you said, I think finding a third-party dvd drive will not be a problem because I have already found some spare part sellers that sell non-original dvd drives compatible with Dell models. It is such a strange sitation that the original dvd drives don't solve the problem and I try to buy third party, cheap chinese dvd drives to solve the problem :)

There was no need to purchase a new drive. Your laptop is still under warranty and the DVD drive is not functioning properly, so Dell should replace it. If you haven't already, please call them and indicate that the drive does not read DVDs disc properly.

Osprey, thank you for advice again.

Well, I firstly also thought sending my laptop to dell service because I have warranty. But this is almost impossible for me for some reasons:

- I have to work all the day with my laptop, which makes it impossible for me to stand apart with my laptop for at least 1 week. This would mean a huge lost time for me.

- I can't risk giving my laptop because they may format it. This may cause a huge time loss for me afterwards.

- And most probably, even if I send my laptop to dell service for warranty, there is a 50% possibility that the dvd disks that they will try will play. This probability I think is even more if they try non-original dvds because my problem is usually with original dvds. And the service may conclude that my dvd drive is ok :)

Well, I know that I am being a demanding person in this case. But due to the above-mentioned concerns, I just wanted to solve the problem myself by buying a new original dvd drive, but strangely it still doesn't solve the problem. And even if the service would believe that the dvd drive is broken and give a new dvd drive, this would still not solve the problem because I already tried a new dvd drive. So, either this dvd drive model in general is problematic (all of them, not only mine), or there is something wrong other than my dvd drive. That is really strange.

First, formatting your hard drive is not something to worry about because you are maintaining regular backups of your data, correct? I just want to make sure I understand your concern with respect to your data integrity.

Second, since installing a new DVD drive is relatively straightforward, you could request that tech support send you a replacement drive of a different model.

The fact that none of the disks from the documentary collections will play does seem to be indicative of something.

Presumably, all the disks in a box set were mastered and manufactured with the same software and techniques. There could possibly be some form of additional copy protection on some disks that does not conform to the DVD standard, preventing them from playing.

I do know that the region code programmed into a DVD-ROM drive can be changed a limited number of times, (like maybe 6) I would assume that a retail packaged computer would have set the correct region code during the factory's initial software installation, but living in region 1, I don't know that for a fact.

Usually the packaging of a DVD will indicate somewhere, if the disk is single or dual-sided, and single or dual layer. Standard (single layer) DVD-R media are 4.7 x 10^9 bytes. Windows always uses 4.7 x 2^30. IIRC (It's a matter of using 1000 vs 1024 for the definition of Kilo, mega, giga, etc. RAM has always used 1024, storage manufacturers started using 1000 to increase the "numbers" a bit.) according to Wikipedia, DVD-DL is 8.5 GB. (It's not actually 2x, because the secondary layer has to have a slightly wider track pitch, meaning the spiral is not as tight, and the track is not as long, in order to be able to selectively focus on one layer and ignore the other.

Finally, just for the sake of argument, try VLC (Video Lan Client) on your notebook. The DVD CCA (Copy control association) has patents on DVD copy protection that they use to require distributers of DVD playback software to pay them royalties, and VLC is organized in a European country that specifically prohibits enforcement of software patents. If any of the "Bad" disks will play in VLC but not in your OEM software, you know it's a software issue. If they still don't play, you know the issue has to be something different about the "Bad" disks, that does not get along with the Dell drives.

www.videolan.org

Osprey4 and Timotheusd, thank you so much for the help, advice and spending your time to help people! I really appreciate it.

@timotheusd

Both the initial dell dvd drive and my newly purchased original/identical dell dvd drive come with the region code "undetermined" so that I can choose it initially. They each has a change permission of 5 times. But I have already selected "Region 2" for each (I am living in a Region 2 country).

I already have VLC Player (my favourite media player!), the other installed media player being Cyberlink PowerDVD. But the problem is that, when I insert a "bad disk", the disk is never read and I can see this in "My Computer" (D: drive seems as if there is no disk) or I can even understand by the rolling sound of dvd that the bad dvd is not read at all (it rolls 3 times and then stop, while "good dvds roll one time and they are immediately read). So, VLC Player -or any other player- doesn't solve the issue.

I totally agree with you in these bad dvds having a common dvd protection or having a kind of different production technique that makes these bad dvds hard to be read by some dvd drives. But whatever the reason is, these bad dvds are easily played in other dvd drives without any problem and these bad dvds are not just "a few particular" dvds. Therefore, I think the problem is related with the dvd drive quality. And the fact that even my newly purchased, original, identical dell dvd drive has the exact same problem leads me to think that these dvd drives are problematic . And I don't really know what can the warranty service do about it. Sending a third original dell dvd drive which also only plays some dvds but not others? :) By the way, today I ordered a cheap, non-original dell dvd drive and probably tomorrow it will be with me. When I try it, I will share the result here because I am really curious about what is going to happen :) Thanks very much again.

Hi Tamerr,

Good to hear.

Dell robbed me and that's it.  I purchased a customized laptop about $2000.  I had it under warranty when I dropped coffee on it.  Dell was not able to repair it so they replaced it with a cheaper version that did not include Blue Ray 3D.  On top of the theft they gave me a computer that has theMATSHITA DVD+-RW UJ8E2 which does not work!  Dell refuses to help fix this problem because this laptop is not under warranty!  Unbelievable.  I have tried to research possible fixes but have not had much success.

Same problem. I have burned some DVDs and I have used the mpeg format. Nothing works. I can hook up an hdmi port to TV, but I fail to play it on my laptop. The final method I find is copy those dvds to hard drive like this one http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/tips/copy-dvd-to-hard-drive.html I really want to know how to solve this problem and play DVDs on laptop.