External DVD not working

[joneswak]

I got my wife a Samsung External DVD Writer SE-S084 for xmas, and I cannot get it to work with her X100e. When I plug the DVD's two-headed USB cable into the two left USB ports, it chirps and hums and spins for a few seconds, but the drive never shows up in the Windows Explorer.

- The latest version of cdrom.sys driver is correctly installed and detected in "Device Manager". Reinstalling is not helping.
- The high-low filters solution does not apply. Filter are not present when opening the key with regedit.
- Window 7 automatic troubleshooter and the Windows DVD debug tool (Mats_dvd.exe from here) detect the problem with the statement "the drive is not assigned a drive letter" but cannot assign a new letter.

From other web forums, my guess is that there's a driver conflict, but I'm not sure how to figure that out.
Any suggestions on how to proceed?
Thanks!
Brian

[Harryc]

Try a powered USB hub. If that works then you know the issue is that the drive is not getting enough power. If you want to fool around with driver compatibility, you can disable drivers/startup items using msconfig. Google it. You have tried the drive on another PC to make sure it works right?

[random]

If it has an external power supply as an option (ac adapter, etc) try it with that plugged in.

[joneswak]

Thanks for the responses.
I've verified that the external DVD drive works by plugging it in to my Thinkpad W510. No problems there.

I'm plugging the two-headed USB cable to the two USB ports on the left side of the X100e. These are powered to the best of my knowledge, and the DVD player whirs as it revs up when plugged in -- but the drive never shows up in the Windows Explorer. The DVD player has no other power plugs, it's 100% powered through the USB cable. There is a 3rd USB port on the R side of the laptop, but the cord isn't long enough to reach over there.

I played around with msconfig (1st time for me), and even when I do a Diagnostic startup, the DVD drive does not show up. Do I need to boot up in Safe Mode? I'll give that a shot...

Thanks again for any suggestions!

[steveg47]

I have the identical DVD and it works fine on my x100e with only one usb connector.
Have you tried checking Disk Management. If you can see it in Disk Management try assigning a drive letter.