BleepingComputer.com: Sony DVD RW wont recognise DVD's

Trying to help my dad out with a problem he has on his PC. He has a Sony DVD RW AW-G170a installed in his tower and although it will recognise and I am able to burn CD's bu it will not recognise or burn DVD's. I have checked the physical side of things and all OK. Cables all connected OK and drive set up as slave as he already has a DVD ROM set as Master. The driver installed for the SONY DVD is the default Microsoft 5.1.2535.0 date 01/07/2001. Thought this might be the issue but reading other sites DVD should work OK with default Microsoft drivers. Have tried finding correct SONY drivers but can only find reference to formware 1.75 but dont want to start flashing drive if no need. Noticed in other blogs info on upper / lower filters in registry. Have checked Registry location mentioned and no upper and lower filters exsist. Not sure if these get installed once DVD burning software program installed , which there wasn`t any on the PC , so have downloaded a copy of "Burn4Free" and installed that. Software recognises DVD as " SONY DVD RW AW-G170A 1.60 -N " . One other thing , when looking at DVD drive on My Computer it comes up as DVD-RAM Drive but if you place a blank DVD-RW or DVD+RW (should support both types) My Computer shows it as a CD Drive ???? All appears OK in device manager. PC was originally installed with Windows Millenium but had an official Windows XP upgrade. Any assistance would be greatfully received

The best initial test is to try to boot from a bootable DVD, such as a Vista install DVD, or a computer magazine cover DVD that is also a Linux Live DVD. That tests the drive itself without any complication from a Windows installation. If the drive doesn't recognize a bootable DVD, but does recognize CDs, then the drive itself is faulty. In that case there is a small possibility the laser lens could need cleaning, you could try that, but usually this symptom is caused by the DVD section of the dual laser failing, and the drive should be replaced.

This post has been edited by Platypus: 17 January 2009 - 09:06 AM

Thanks for the reply. Have placed a bootable DVD in drive and works fine. Have resolved issue which was due to having no DVD sotfware installed. When I initially installed "Burn4free" made basic error in not rebooting to finish install so sort it hadn't worked. Since reboot all now working fine and can burn DVD's on drive no problem.

Excellent! Glad it's now working for you.

Platypus, on Jan 17 2009, 10:06 PM, said:

Funny, Sir Chucker, 'coz we have exactly the same problem, and I made the silly mistakes that you did as well!

Now, Sir Platypus, I'm running on Windows Xp Sp3, what types of bootable DVD can I use to test my drive? You suggested Vista install DVD, wouldn't that mess with the Xp Sp3 I already installed? Or, what else can I use?

I'm so sorry, I'm really no computer wiz when it gets to the technical aspects.

This post has been edited by edwardross12: 06 March 2009 - 09:10 PM