Help my DVD Drive won't work!!?

Question

I had an old Dell Dimension 5150 and it recently died. I Built a new computer from scratch and it runs perfectly except for my 2 optical drives which I used in my old pc. The primary drive is a Sony DVD-ROM DDU1615 and the secondary drive is a HL-DT_ST DVD+-RW Both drives used to read all discs but now only the first plays music and movies and cannot read RW discs anymore. The second used to be able to play music and movies and burn as well. The most trouble I am having with it is, it says it is working well but the drive cannot ready and discs at all! NONE!! The drive tray opens and closes but doesn't read any disc. I tried CD-R,CD+R,DVD-RW etcc. I went in device manager I checked it over, I installed,unistalled,disabled,re-enabled I went into the computer check my cable connections and everything but I cannot find anything wrong. I had Windows check 4 latest updates but I apparently have the latest driver for it and still it doesn't work. I cleaned the Registry and everything. The Device is shown working well under Device manager and my computer. Since I try rolling back the drive but then windows automatically updates it no matter what. My build is Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit, AMD Phenom 2 X6 1090T, 800 Watt power supply, ATI Radeon HD4550, 4 GB of GSKILL RAM, a 1TB western digital hard drive. Can anyone help? I have been to the dell site to get the drivers and firmware for the optical drive but it still doesn't work!

Answer 1

they sound like they are IDE interface



one must be master M jumper

one must be slave S jumper

however sometimes there is a mismatch and some ide interfaces need the two drives to co-operate a bit, there may be a bios setting to enable/disable 32 bit transfers this may affect operation one way or the other otherwise you need the help of the CS jumper cable select



sometimes the secondary must be set to CS jumper cable select as it wont otherwise co-operate

if the two drives do not work set as M and CS then swop the two drives about, in the jumper sense

ie make the other one M and the other other one CS

quite often you find that only one of the two drives will work as the real master and that

would explain what you are experiencing.

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note some drives use UDMA 33 and some UDMA 66 and some UDMA 100



this is another possible mismatch drives should drop their speed to accomodate the lowest so thats really why you may need to switch which one is in control

Answer 2

whether that's a DVD WRITINGchronic, it must additionally do CD WRITING. And there are various older DVD study and CD study/write drives. for short term you will desire to purchase an exterior DVD and CD writingchronic for around £30. the cost of a sparkling inner is often very severe as you're procuring convenience.

Answer 3

Have you tried doing updates to your motherboard, my guess is the dvd drivers are not compatible with the motherboard, or at least the drivers for those drives. Try doing updates to your motherboard, and see what the outcome might be.