[Micky C]

So my PC's DVD drive can't recognize any disk (DVD, cd, game, movie etc); it always thinks the tray is empty. I've tried googling the problem online, but I keep coming across questions where the drive itself isn't recognized. That's not the case here; the drive works (opens/closes), it shows up in windows explorer. However, when I double click on it in explorer, it says "please insert disk".

I'm running windows 10 64-bit. I've tried updating the drivers and uninstalling/reinstalling them. No luck.

Does anyone know what the issue might be and how to fix it? DVD drives aren't critical at this point in time given the Cloud, but it'd be nice to have one when I need it.

[Mark]

A dumb sounding question but... was it working and then stopped or is this a new drive installed?

[Micky C]

It was definitely working. This was the original drive that came with the computer ~9 years ago. Of course, I don’t know when it stopped working exactly since I haven’t used it in a while.

If I have to end up buying a new drive for whatever reason, I’d probably go with an external one, since I could at least use that with other devices as well, such as my MacBook.

[Forge]

Had a similar issue - in addition to shut-down hangs.

The DVD drive was bad & I replaced it.

[Person of Color]

...You're asking questions about a $15 component that isn't working that's known to die a lot?

Just buy another.

Jesus Christ.

Natural gas was pulled out of the ground, destroying our water, and then burned, to process this tiny, useless, mind polluting stream of electrical signals. Highly reactive uranium atoms were smashed together in a billion dollar facility that's rusting, out of date, and poorly inspected. Coal was mined, harvested, and lit on fire to power your miracle machine, but not before people died trying to get it out of the ground so you could ask such a worthless question.

Think next time so my grandchildren can grow up in a world with electricity.

[Mark]

[Micky C]

Person of Color, on 21 April 2018 - 10:17 PM, said:

Natural gas was pulled out of the ground, destroying our water, and then burned, to process this tiny, useless, mind polluting stream of electrical signals. Highly reactive uranium atoms were smashed together in a billion dollar facility that's rusting, out of date, and poorly inspected. Coal was mined, harvested, and lit on fire to power your miracle machine, but not before people died trying to get it out of the ground so you could ask such a worthless question.

My state is predominantly powered by renewable energy, and my country has no nuclear power plants. Technically I'm not doing too much damage asking the question, but apparently you are in answering it

[Jeff]

If the drive is almost 9 years old, maybe the laser burnt out or something? I had a Blu-ray burner that gave out on me last year, even though I could still see it in Windows, it wouldn't recognize or burn any discs.

[Forge]

Person of Color, on 21 April 2018 - 10:17 PM, said:

...You're asking questions about a $15 component that isn't working that's known to die a lot?

Just buy another.

Jesus Christ.

[Micky C]

Jeff, on 23 April 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

If the drive is almost 9 years old, maybe the laser burnt out or something? I had a Blu-ray burner that gave out on me last year, even though I could still see it in Windows, it wouldn't recognize or burn any discs.

Yeah I'll just get an external one since that's an easy, and more importantly flexible, option. I was just checking here in case there was some kind of software fix.

[MrFlibble]

The CD/DVD drive on my old laptop developed a strong inclination to not recognise any DVDs while CDs continued to work just fine, sometime after around seven years of use. I Googled the drive model online, only to find out that several users complained about exactly the opposite: their drives would accept DVDs but not read CDs I just bought an external drive to get around this.

[Person of Color]

Just buy another internal drive and swap the bezel.