DVD problems

Deedo

My new Windows Vista disk will not load in 3 of 4 drives.

I am currently running 3 different systems. The first is a Dell Precision about 3 years old. The second is a Dell Dimension about 2 years old. The third is a Gateway about 9 years old. Both Dells have a DVD/CDRW from the factory. The Gateway has a DVD from the factory and an aftermarket CDRW. The only drive that will load the Vista disk is the original Gateway drive. Are the Dell drives just cheap? and if so, what should I look for in a replacement to make sure I don't have this problem with the new drive.

Thanks

JDMurray

Are the Vista disks clean? Do they have any smudges, scratches, or chips on the shiny side? They may just need a cleaning with some Windex and a soft tissue.

As to DVD-ROM and DVD-RW drives, I'm very fond of Plextor and have never had any problems with them. I've also never had any real problems with the DVD-ROM drives that came in any of my Dell workstations either.

Deedo

The disk is new and doesn't appear to have anything wrong with it. I'm sure the drive is working correctly because I just installed Visual Studio 2005. The disk does load from one drive on my oldest system.

jasonboche

Some CDs and DVDs can come with defects from the factory, although there will nothing that is obviously notworthy by looking at the shiny side of the disc. A few weeks ago my wife bought me a movie DVD. It looks perfectly clean but towards the end of the movie, it skips all over the place and the DVD player has trouble reading it. I will exchange it.

Jas

JDMurray

Hmmmm...new, clean Vista DVDs not being read on older DVD drives. I would check if the "bad" drives have any firmware updates available. Maybe flashing the drives with their latest firmware rev will fix the problem. I would also like to try forcing the drives to read the DVDs only at 1x speed, but I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe there a CD speed setting in the CMOS, but it's likely to be controlled within Windows.