DVD drive appears normal, but won't play DVD

[Hammertime]

Hey all,

For the last month or so my DVD drive (LITE-ON SHM-165H6S) has not been able to "see" my CD/DVD. However, under my Device Manager it appears to be operating fine. It also has the most recent drivers.

Under My Computer I see the drive as "DVD RW Drive" And if I double click it my DVD tray actually opens it up. But when I put a disc in it never actually sees it.


Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core 5000+ 2.60GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
4GB DDR RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165H6S ATA

I've done a fair amount of troubleshooting on Google and am still coming up blank. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If you need any additional info or specs, please let me know!

 

[JacobC1983]

sorry to tell you, I had the same problem with a liteon drive, and it ended up being the drive itself having problems. Bought an LG DVD burner off newegg (about 25 bucks) and never looked back.

I am sorry I can't be more help

 

[BlindedByScience]

This is actually a very normal failure mode for optical drives. One day the work fine and the next day they.....don't.

The optical systems die while the electrical systems still work, which is why it shows up and appears to be functioning normally....except it won't read / burn a disk.

The good news is replacement drives are hella cheap and you don't have to reinstall the whole OS to replace them....like I did this weekend with my new PC (what a pain in the butt).

 

[Expo]

i've had this happen with my laptop. dv9820us. also my sony dru-18a seems to short off sometimes and not even detect it.

i always thought could be psu or soemthing but its juss a little shortage with electricity in my case.