CD/DVD drive problems

I'm rebuilding an HP tower PC for a friend following v*r*s problems that seemed to have trashed the hard drive and stopped Windows being able to start in any way whatsoever.

This is the second time this has happened - she'll learn!

Originally it was running Win 7 and was able to play DVDs. However the rebuilds have had to be XP (don't ask). I've rebuilt Windows, downloaded and installed the various hardware drivers. All ok.

However I cannot get it to play DVDs. It'll play CDs but when I initially tried to play a DVD WMP said no suitable DVD decoder was installed. I installed one and - just once - a brief piece of music was played but no picture.

I've tried various DVD codecs, both free and non-free, no improvement. I've tried different media players, VLC, WinAmp, no difference. They all fail to play the DVD, just giving a blank screen.

The drive is a LITE-ON Combo SOHC-4836K.

Any thoughts on how to progress this?

An associated thought - in the BIOS the LITE-ON is shown as being on a PATA interface. If I were to replace the drive what sort of cheap and cheerful drive would be suitable?

Did she not get a copy of powerdvd or windvd with the system?
Installing either will supply the codec for dvd playback in wmp.

No, she inherited the PC when she left work.

Just install k-lite.

If the issue is with the player and not the drive (people have trouble with windows media player. A media player that will not play DVDs because of codec issues is not much use in my opinion) down load VLC it will play just about any thing.

Regards

Cruddas

+1 VLC
it will play all you need - even iso images of dvd's without the need to mount the iso as a virtual drive

I said in the OP that I'd tried VLC but that it didn't work.

The DVD that I'm using will play on my own XP PC using WMP. WMP does all that I need it do and am quite happy with it.

I've tried the Nero codec that works on my XP PC. Also tried the Corel DVD Pack.

All to no avail.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

However the rebuilds have had to be XP (don't ask).

I am asking. Did it come with 7 pre-installed? Did you not have a recovery disk? It there no sticker on it?

The DVD that I'm using...

have you tried any other dvd's, it may be one where a session isn't closed or something.

The only sticker is for XP Pro. I gather the IT department at the company installed a W7 Ultimate on it "as a favour". However it wasn't a valid copy so was always giving her problems.

When I replaced it with XP I used the sticker key.

It's a commercial DVD that plays fine on my own XP PC.

You should also do her a favour, just do a proper job of it.

Okay, last try, install k-lite & maybe select a region in the DVD player device properties panel.

You haven't said what kind of HP PC it is.

"inherited the PC when she left work" may make it the HP equivalent of a Compaq Deskpro PC or modern equivalent. Native HP home PC would be a Pavilion (or worse, a Compaq Presario). The home PCs can be quite different beasts from similar-spec business PCs (or at least used to be, in the days of XP...).

It is vaguely plausible that there are differences in the graphics (and other) drivers between the HP/CPQ version and the vendor (ATI or whoever) version, especially where multimedia is concerned. Whose drivers are you using?

There was often an HP/CPQ-supplied DVD player downloadable from the support site if one was supplied orignally.

If it is an HP business PC it is possible that it has cheap+cheerful integrated graphics AND an add-on graphics card. This too can confuse the picture.

Have a look at these, and report back.

Mind you, none of these would directly relate to WMP saying "no DVD decoder found". But maybe that's only what it said, not what it meant.

Best of luck.

It's an 'HP Compaq Dx 2200 Microtower'.

Many thanks. K-lite Standard in conjunction with its Media Player Classic now plays DVDs.

Windows Media #Player crashes, VLC hangs.

As it happens I'd already tried K-Lite but had only downloaded the Basic version which, had I read it properly, I'd have seen doesn't include an MPEG-2decoder for DVD playback - Doh!

So it's now set to default to Media Player Classic for DVDs, WMP for CDs. All works fine.

Just take WMP out of the equation for a minute, if you load VLC and try and play it in that dies ut play at all?

I said at the beginning VLC doesn't work, as I recall it just hangs.

But as I've already posted I now have a solution via K-Lite which works.

You need to alter "Subject" and add "fixed".

Makes it easier to know in which post you found a solution.