I have eMachines desktop T6212, with pre-installed LITE-ON’s SOHW-1633S DVD-RW drive. It’s a duel layer DVD writer. I was using it (read/write) since last six months without any problem. But last week suddenly, it stopped recognizing any DVD (movie, recorded DVD-R) [Actually I tried to clean totally unnecessarily its laser lens using Philips Laser Lens Cleaner disc – but not sure, that created this problem]. Anyway, I reported this problem to eMachines and they shipped me a brand new LITE-ON’s SHW-1635S DVD-RW drive that I installed later. But my problem remained same. Symptoms of problems are: (1) when a DVD is inserted, windows explorer does not show any file in the drive; in fact, drive never finish reading, it makes noise while trying to read it. (2) When CD is placed, the same DVD-RW drive reads it quickly and displays the typical small window asking to play with Media Player or Open the Folder etc; windows explorer shows file within the CD too and it is recognized. (3) When you don’t have any disk on the drive and try to click the drive-letter (E: or F in windows explorer, it typically gives an error message saying “Please insert a disk in drive…”. For this faulty DVD Drive, such error message does not appear (but other drives in the same PC, gives such message). (4) In Device Manager, it is rightly recognized and shows working properly. Above all symptoms are true for both old and new replaced DVD drives. When I faced the problem with old DVD drive, I tried to change its firmware, with no success. On suggestion, I tried to restore system from the date when my old DVD drive was working fine; again no success. I tried all familiar process of uninstalling the DVD-RW from device manager and then restarting the PC when new hardware got recognized and installed; again no success. I tried the same for new drive too – no success again. Now eMachines is suggesting to do the complete System Restore (at the pre-sale status) – that is so undesirable and has no guarantee to the resolution. I feel, it may not be any hardware or firmware problem. I don’t remember installing any new software since last rightly working DVD drive days. I cleaned up PC from adware or spyware. Please help or let me know any site/forum where similar problems were discussed or resolved. Syamal
Hi, I'm having the same problem and was just about to buy a new burner before seeing this. I'm am getting assistance at this thread from Saugmon http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/309056 I have done the same things as you as well as physically checking the connections and doing a cleanup of dust etc... I can burn no problem with a CD but DVD's are not recognized. I think it has something to do with Nero or ANYDVD. I deleted Nero and when using the clean-up tool, it stated something about a registry problem and that it would fix it. This was probably a mistake on my part to let it but I noticed when Nero was gone and I rebooted, ANYDVD popped up and said I had NO DVD player!. So I removed ANYDVD as well and now don't know what to do. My DVD drive makes a ticking noise every second or two when there is a DVD in there but nothing for a CD and is continually trying to find the DVD by the looks of it. Anyway, keep a lookout for the other thread in case of a solution.
