T42/p DVD Rom / CDRW drive wont play DVD's

[bauer336]

I have the T42/p model which has a MATSHITA UJDA754 combined DVD rom / CDR drive. Orthough this reads CD roms really well, I am unable to get it to read any dato or movies from any type of DVD medium. I have googled round and found that its a common problem with the particular model of CD drive, but I am having a dickens of a time finding an actual fix for it, whether it be a firmware uptadate, or some kind of software.

I'd appreciate any input on this, thanks in advance.

[tfflivemb2]

I would try using the Nero Info tool that is discussed in this thread, to determine if you are using the correct type of DVD (ie. +R or -R).

As for the movies, do you have a media player with the proper DVD codec software? If not, here is a link to a program called K-lite, which is free.

[bauer336]

I'm using Nero 7 , and Power DVD

[GomJabbar]

I suppose it could be a software issue. However, the laser requirements for reading DVD's are different than for reading CD's. I think it is more likely a problem with the drive. If possible, try the drive in another ThinkPad.

One other thing you could try is go into Device Manager and uninstall the DVD drive and uninstall everything under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, then reboot. Windows will reinstall the drivers and perhaps that will fix your problem.

[bill bolton]

I have googled round and found that its a common problem with the particular model of CD drive

Its bit of a long shot, but there is a quite recent (17 April 2006) version of the CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, CD-RW/DVD drive firmware update utility (Bootable CD ISO) available from the IBM web site, here.

So, you might want to download and burn that image, and then boot from it to see if it updates the firmware in your optical drive, which may assist with your current problem

I was a little surprised to find that it offered me a firmware upgrade for the CD-RW/DVD drive in my T43, which I had received in late January!

Cheers,

Bill

[Nick Y]

On my T43, which has a different model DVD reader/CD R/W, I had a problem recently when writing to DVDs on an external drive. I could not read many/all of them on the T43 internal drive. I think I have found the cause: low quality blank DVDs. I bought some high grade blanks and so far, so good. (Type I bought were Taiyo Yuden, but you may want to do your own country-specific research.)