CD problem once again

I have looked around this forum about CD problems, but no thread corresponds to my problem.
I have Vista Ultimate x64. My DVD is TSST CDDVDW SH-223F ATA.
I have a problem to read a contents of CDs. I can see DVDs, but CDs not. These CDs are originals from software producers and magazines.
Under Win XP I have no problem to read all medias. I have seen some hints, but nothing helps.
Is there somebody with any idea what is wrong in Vista?

How old is your machine, the only thing I can think is that maybe the laser for the reading of CD's has gone bad.
Have you tried cleaning the drive at all.?

My machine is approx. 1 month old. So there is no reason for this problem. I am always looking for the solution, but without good result.

prchlik said:

My machine is approx. 1 month old. So there is no reason for this problem. I am always looking for the solution, but without good result.

Click to expand...

That doesn't necessarily mean that the DVD drive isn't bad. I've known new components to fail days after installing them.

In your case, the laser for reading CDs might be bad, as Joan mentioned. It could be a dust particle or it could be out of alignment. Or it's a sub-standard drive that the manufacturers provided.

As you said, the disks work fine in other machines. To determine fully where the fault lies, try installing a DVD drive from another machine that you know reads both DVD and CD media without problems. If the problem goes away in Vista, then the original drive itself is bad and needs to be replace. If the problem persists, then the issue lies elsewhere, and we'll need to investigate further.

So I have made another tests. Things are getting more complicated. CD/DVD drive works perfect under other systems. It is not a hardware problem, because I can boot with a CD and then Vista cannot read the content from the same CD. I have 2DVDs from different suppliers. But both are originals. One Vista can read and the second one cannot. This is new for me, because at this moment I have no problems to read DVDs. I will test another DVD drive, but it seems that the problem has Vista. Maybe it is some security problem. Does anybody know any utility, which can catch all processes during inserting CD in the drive?

Use Process Explorer and search for the handle 'cdrom' to see what is accessing your drive.

So I have used another DVD drive, which is absolutely right. And the problem is same! What is worse, I have burned a CD, the burning worked very well and the CD is good. But if I put this CD in the drive, Vista doesn´t read the content. Other system like XP reads. Vista sees CD or DVD disk (the icon changes), but cannot read the content. It looks like a problem in the filesystem.

prchlik said:

So I have used another DVD drive, which is absolutely right. And the problem is same! What is worse, I have burned a CD, the burning worked very well and the CD is good. But if I put this CD in the drive, Vista doesn´t read the content. Other system like XP reads. Vista sees CD or DVD disk (the icon changes), but cannot read the content. It looks like a problem in the filesystem.

Click to expand...

Have you tried downloading and installing the latest drivers for your motherboard IDE controller (SATA controller if you have a SATA based DVD drive)? Also, what software to you have installed that may be related to the functions of the drive, such as Nero or some other such software.

Try this also:

1. Click on the Start Orb
2. in the Search Box, type "cmd" (without quotes)
3. Right-click "cmd" in the search results, and then select "Run As Administrator"
4. in the Admin Command Prompt, type "sfc /scannow" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>.
5. If SFC reports any errors, it should fix them. If not, please report back and we can go from there.

So exactly what happens when you try to access the CD from the drive in Explorer?
Do you get any type of error message, or any message at all?
Have you looked in your Event Viewer for any errors at the same time that you tried the CD, that may be causing this?
Have you looked in Device Manager for anything that's not working properly?

Have you done the most common repair for Optical Drives...physically uninstall the drivers, shut down and unplug the device, reboot the machine WITHOUT the drive hooked up so Windows knows it's gone, then power down and reinstall the drive, reboot and allow Windows to reinstall the drivers?

Dzomlija said:

prchlik said:

So I have used another DVD drive, which is absolutely right. And the problem is same! What is worse, I have burned a CD, the burning worked very well and the CD is good. But if I put this CD in the drive, Vista doesn´t read the content. Other system like XP reads. Vista sees CD or DVD disk (the icon changes), but cannot read the content. It looks like a problem in the filesystem.

Click to expand...

Have you tried downloading and installing the latest drivers for your motherboard IDE controller (SATA controller if you have a SATA based DVD drive)? Also, what software to you have installed that may be related to the functions of the drive, such as Nero or some other such software.

Try this also:

1. Click on the Start Orb
2. in the Search Box, type "cmd" (without quotes)
3. Right-click "cmd" in the search results, and then select "Run As Administrator"
4. in the Admin Command Prompt, type "sfc /scannow" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>.
5. If SFC reports any errors, it should fix them. If not, please report back and we can go from there.

Click to expand...

Super. Here we go. This was the solution. Now I can read all CD/DVD. What is better, Vista booting is quicker approx. 3x. This command "sfc" was the right help. Thanks a lot. I don´t know this command. It has created a file CBS.log and I thought it has founded a lot of bugs (file has now 25MB). It is strange for me that there are bugs, because I am working with a pure instalation and with only few programs. But finally I am happy that it works and I can focus on other things. Thanks again.
Problem is solved.

My optimism came too quickly. Now I have no printers, Vista cannot show System from Control Panel and other things. The command was good, but made some bad repairs. ;o( It looks that I will go in the re-installation.

I have found the evil in my system. Maybe. It is UAC control. If it is disabled than the system runs with strange behaviour. if it is enabled it is better, but sometimes makes some faults too. but I need to disable UAC, because there is a lot of annoying messages, which drive me nuts. But for this I will create new thread.
Thanks a lot to everybody.

prchlik said:

My optimism came too quickly. Now I have no printers, Vista cannot show System from Control Panel and other things. The command was good, but made some bad repairs. ;o( It looks that I will go in the re-installation.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry to hear that, but this would indeed indicate that the original issue you had experienced was more deeply rooted than either of us anticipated.

If you are going the re-install route (which is always a last resort), then be cautious about what you install after reloading Windows. The most important items before any other software of any kind whatsoever would be the drivers for all your hardware. Once the hardware is happy and shows no bangs in Device Manager, then you can proceed to install application and utility software, sticking only to the essentials.

It help to only install the big ones, like Office, or the critical utilities like Nero or WinZip. Anything else is redundant. I usually only install those redundant utilities if and when I need them.

In my opinion if going with a clean reinstall make sure that the first things you install before going on the internet are your firewall, or the native Vista one if you use that, and a good anti virus program.