Help with DVD not working

[Mercule]

I burned a DVD image at work, and it shows up fine on various work computers. When I take it home, it shows up as a blank disc. I'm out of ideas. Does anyone has one to lend?

FWIW, the DVD was burned DVD+R format. I'm not sure how to check to see if my home computer would have any problems with that specific format.

 

[XCorvis]

How did you burn the DVD at work? Did you use Roxio, nero, burn from an ISO, drag and drop? What operating system?

Do you have a burning program on your home computer? If you do, open it up and see what it says about your drive. It will probably tell you what it can read and write.

 

[Mercule]

Burned with Roxio (5?) on Win XP SP1. Burned from DVD ISO from MSDN (VS2005). Runs on a Dell desktop WinXP SP2. Does not run on a Gateway laptop WinXP SP2. Neither has a DVD-burner. The Dell has CD/DVD reader, only. The Gateway has CD-R/RW + DVD reader (one drive).

I have Nero at home, but it is not installed. I so rarely burn CDs that the built-in XP tool serves my need. I'll see about using either tool to figure out what it reads.

 

[drothgery]

Some older DVD drives can read DVD-R, but not DVD+R, DVD-RW, or DVD+RW.

 

[XCorvis]

Some older DVD drives can read DVD-R, but not DVD+R, DVD-RW, or DVD+RW.

That's what I'm thinking. There are also a couple of weird burning programs that can make it difficult to read a disk, but I don't think those are involved. Also, in Windows Update, you should probably get the update concerning CD burning. It's something like "XMAT" or "high mat" support - I don't recall.

 

[Thanatos]

I have an old Toshiba laptop that has a CD/DVD-R/RW burner and it had a tough time reading the + media till I updated the drivers. I also did the windows update for the extra hardware support from windows and that fixed a host of other problems I had with it.

 

[Mercule]

The laptop is only 1.5 years old -- newer than my work machine, actually. My patches should be up to date, but I bet I could update my drivers. I'll do that and see what happens.

 

[Oscaron]

I'd hit the manfacturers website of the Drive you have. Check the model number.

It should tell you whether or not the drive can read DVD+R at all or whether a firmware upgrade is needed.

Alternately, hit google and look for model number "DVD+R"

If anyone else has had trouble, I'm sure they've posted it to a forum somewhere that has been Google-crawled.

One last idea, some discs have intrusive copy protections. Not suggestion you are copying protected discs, but some protections install themselves onto systems and affect burning programs the in a similar way it protects their discs. Sony is in trouble for installing root-kits on PCs with their media.

It could have been installed with another disc and you are seeing the side-affects. Unlikeliest of the answers, but always a possibility.

Osc

 

[Mercule]

Just for clarification, this is a legal burn of an MSDN iso, from my own subscription.

Also, I got it to work by sharing a DVD drive from another computer on my home network.

Gateway's official answer is, pretty much, "Gosh, dude, I dunno."