Hi, I am trying to help a neighbor read a dvd. Here is the setup: Windows ME Interactual player external DVD on USB. The drive says LG on it, but I forgot to actually look for model info. The Windows device manager says the *name* of the device is HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8163B, but it says the *type* of device is CDROM. Also, when I look at the driver details, it says something like MSCDROM.INF (I forgot to write it down too, and can't check on my own PC what the CDROM driver is called, cause I am running Linux). In any case, it was the exact same driver name that the built-in CDROM had. Now, the actual problem is that when she inserts a DVD, Interactual starts up, and then says it cannot continue. It suggests checking the screen resolution and color density. Well... we went through lots of those and it didn't help. Then I clicked on a button on the error msg window which displayed System Settings, and in the DVD Decoder tab it said something like "DVD Device found: No"!! So my guess was that W-ME sees this device as a CDROM, not a DVD at all. And that the only way I will get it to work is by installing a driver. 1) Does this diagnosis sound OK? 2) Is there really such a box as a GDR8163B that connects USB and not IDE? Any advice? Thank you very much! I really want to help her, she and her hubby are taking turns between being home with two little kids, and being in oncology with the 3rd...... :-( They wanted the DVD to help cheer up the kids at home.
Well, today I went back and borrowed the device itself to look at more. I plugged the USB into my Linux box and it worked fine, so the HW at least is OK. I see that the drive itself is probably a standard IDE drive, cause what I had in my hand was just a box with power and USB at the back (an enclosure for the drive). I read some more and decided to go over and check out some more stuff on the PC over there. 1) I cant find any decoder sw! I would have expected that when interactual was installed a decoder came with it, but apparently not. 2) the USB Mass Storage Device (the drive) shows up in device mgr with a green "?", W-ME's way of saying the wrong driver is used. I an wondering if decoder sw will solve that too? So far I cant find a free decoder, just VLC which apparently can NOT fill in for a decoder for other players, just is its own player. Any advice or help will be appreciated! Shimon
