Thinkpads Forum

situation: was burning a dvd and multimedia player stop saying something about a driver update available. After burning could not burn another dvd (cd yes). It does not seem to recognize the dvd writer as a writer any more. It plays dvds, writes cds, but does not recognize blank dvds (says they are full) and in My Computer it indicates the drive as a CD writer only.

Have done: reloaded all drivers I can think of, reloaded multimedia, tried Nero, downloaded the Thinkpad media test iso which said my drivers were up to date. ... I have not made an animal sacrifice but am tempted ...

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4083N -- o.k. i have looked around but cannot find a new driver thinking that perhaps that is my problem-- though I don't think so. I see that when I put a DVD it says Disc Unmounted" ...


Any suggestions are welcome.

thanks in advance

Sometimes on various PC's when loading new software that has a burn program or just a software glitch in such a program has caused me similar problems. Just last week when Windows XP Update downloaded Windows Media Player 11 through an update, my desktop PC DVD drive, made also by LG-Hitachi, stopped working (actually my PC couldn't see it anymore). What has in general worked to solve my problems is to delete the drive in device manager, reboot the PC and let Windows find and reinstall the hardware. Just reinstalling the drivers has never helped me.

I had a similar problem once with a firmware update on a desktop CD/RW recorder. After the firmware update, I could still burn CD's with Nero but my backup program would not burn backups to CD's anymore. I tried rolling back the firmware, but it didn't help any. Some searching online suggested that it was a registry setting as a result of the firmware change that was causing my problems. About a month later I performed a fresh install of Windows XP and my CD recorder began working properly again. So the registry theory was born out.

The purpose of my rambling above is to suggest that if deeastman's suggestion does not work, then use Windows System Restore or restore a backup to revert to a time when the DVD writer was operating properly. If you use System Restore, you may have to run it from Windows SAFE MODE.