Plextor 740-A, Win2k, won't recognize DVD's

[ph349397]

First of all, I bought the 740-A based on the advice of those on this forum and I have been very pleased with my purchase. Unfortunately, despite my success in burning DVD's, I cannot get Win2k to recognize that there is a DVD in the drive. It always recognizes the DVD's i put in there as CD's, or at least that is what is indicated in an explorer window. I got the notion from reading some other threads that I might just have to update my motherboard drivers, the problem having something to do with IDE controllers or some shit, and unfortunately the only motherboard driver that is available on the Gateway support website won't install.

Anybody have any advice?

[Justin42]

Does it cause any problems? Like, can you play a DVD ok?

I'm just wondering, if it's burning fine and reading fine, it's a problem worth possibly breaking other stuff to fix. (Windows does weird things sometimes, especially with optical media, but even with 'normal' devices... I usually figure if it's just a cosmetic mismatch with no loss in functionality, who cares what Windows labels it..)

[ala42]

First of all, I bought the 740-A based on the advice of those on this forum and I have been very pleased with my purchase. Unfortunately, despite my success in burning DVD's, I cannot get Win2k to recognize that there is a DVD in the drive. It always recognizes the DVD's i put in there as CD's, or at least that is what is indicated in an explorer window.

This is a windows explorer feature to fool you, also available in XP. Ignore it as everyone else does and be happy again .

[ph349397]

The problem seems to be more than cosmetic. For instance, if I open Windows Media Player and try to play a DVD, I can't select the DVD iso, I'll just end up "exploring" through the video_ts directory. For lack of better terminology, programs that operate on a DVD iso aren't being "told" that there is one in the drive, they just see it as data.

I think I've figured out the problem, my BIOS needs updated. Unfortunately this solution has only uncovered another problem. I need to update the BIOS by restarting the computer with a floppy in the drive, but my floppy drive is some weird IDE floppy, not a normal floppy. When I boot the computer with the floppy that has all the necessary BIOS-updating files on it, I only get a message that NTLDR is missing. I'm assuming that if I had a regular floppy drive this wouldn't be happening. I got this machine off ebay, that is why I'm stuck with this shitty IDE floppy drive, it wasn't my choice.

If anybody knows I way I can update my BIOS w/o a regular floppy drive, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to get a regular floppy drive ASAP.

[Justin42]

I seriously doubt a BIOS update will fix this.

I think there may be some issues with your system but they're not where you're looking.

Do you have a DVD player program installed? (PowerDVD, WinDVD, etc) I would think the 740 would come with something, if you bought a retail drive kit. If not, Windows Media Player won't play your DVDs for you. You're using the term 'iso' which means a disc *image* (i.e., the DVD copied to the hard drive), not a disc itself. You are trying to play the DVD, correct? What happens if you right click on the DVD drive letter and select "Play"?