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Can not play DVD, CD works OK

post #1 of 12
6/10/04 at 5:43pm
Thread Starter 
I decided to watch a movie Tuesday night and the DVD player acted like it could not read the disk. I tried a CD with video on it and it played fine. My first guess was the the InterVideo WinDVD software that came with the machine might have been a trial version since the machine was acting like there was no DVD decoder, so I bought the latest version 6 of WinDVD. Didn't help. I followed the WinXP help trouble shooter which had me to open Media Player and click the Play button on the menu bar which gives a drop down list that includes Play DVD. If that option is black it means a DVD is loaded and available for play. If it is grayed out there is no media available. It was gray. I then called Sager and they wanted me to remove the CD player form the machine to make it loose all power and then reinstall. I didnt do this step. Instead I uninstalled the hardware in the device manager, then shut down, removed ac and battery power for a while then resupplied power and started up. The DVD played the first time I tried it. I was sure I had fixed the problem. Wasn't ready to watch the movie right then so I closed WinDVD and went on about my day. Later that night when I was ready to watch the movie it again would not read. I tried the same procedure that worked eairlier in the day but I never have gotten the DVD to read. When you put the disk in the lights on the drive flash and if you are in a quiet room, you can hear the head on the drive moving like it is trying to read but doesn't. Sager says I need to send the drive in to them, but I know the readers of this forum sometimes get things fixed faster than Sager. Anyone with ideas please help.

On a side note, I have fixed the sound system by reading this forum and hope to get my wireless g reception up soon. I am currently using a pcmcia card that gets 3 times better reception than the onboard g card. Yes the fans are noisy. I lock mine full throttle mode (Fn+F10) The only thing that really bugs me is hearing them ramp up when not expected. Full on suits me better. Overall I am still very happy with my descision to buy the Sager.

Sager 8790c 3.0 Northwood, 1 gig ram, single 7200 rpm hard drive, 7 in 1 card reader, Subwoofer, No TV Tuner
Standard CDRW DVD, its a SamSung SN-324F


Update 06/11/04
Last night i went through the uninstall shutdown remove power restart process again. This time I started WinDVD before the machine found the hardware and clicked play after the DVD was installed and before the CD was installed and the DVD played just fine. Leads me to believe there is a conflict between the two or between them and something else. Will keep working. If any one has more info please post.
Thanks
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post #2 of 12
6/10/04 at 6:18pm
Sounds like a flaky DVD drive to me.
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post #3 of 12
6/11/04 at 4:29pm
I have certain issues with my dvd drive as well it won't read dvdrs that it burned. But when it does this a restart or constantly ejecting/reinserting disc it would then work.
I will be contacting sager soon; i have another problem that I'm testing.
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post #4 of 12
6/11/04 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirtstyle
I have certain issues with my dvd drive as well it won't read dvdrs that it burned. But when it does this a restart or constantly ejecting/reinserting disc it would then work.
I will be contacting sager soon; i have another problem that I'm testing.
Sounds like Flaky media. What type of blank media are you using?
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post #5 of 12
6/12/04 at 12:26pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry to be such trouble to everyone. It was a worm. Reformated and everything works great.
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post #6 of 12
6/12/04 at 10:08pm
it could be the media
i purchased it from here http://yesbuy.net/index.html
i believe the disc name was princo
hey it was cheap 100 for $45
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post #7 of 12
6/12/04 at 10:38pm
That site is super expensive. Try Shop4Tech and take a look at the Ritek 1x-4x media. It works very well with the 2x and 4x toshiba drives that are in the 8790s. I have cut about 250 or so DVDs on these machines & my 3360V that has the 2X DVD Drive.

They are priced at about $65 - $71 for 100 Bulk pack. Highly recommended by me.
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post #8 of 12
6/15/04 at 8:38am
Thread Starter 
Mine worked fine after reinstall for 2 times. Same problem now. Will not read DVDs at all. I do not know what the media is, just movies you get from the movie store. I have never had these problems in the past. I will also be contacting Sager again, they told me last time they would want the drive back for inspection. I have no clue as how to get it out. If anyone knows of a link to a page that will tell me how, that will be helpful.
Thanks
Eddie
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post #9 of 12
6/15/04 at 12:16pm
Look on Page 6-4 of the 8790 User Manual. Be careful "pushing" the CD/DVD Drive out.
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post #10 of 12
6/16/04 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
I am still working on this concern. After format and reinstall the drive will not worked great a couple times but then started the same old thing. I did finally get it to work by moving it to the bottom of the boot device list in the BIOS which means the first time the drive is called upon on startup is after it has been installed by XP. This means the DVD drive is called upon after I have already opened WinDVD. This made it run which still leads me to believe there is some sort of conflict. After getting the drive up and leaving the configuration alone and rebooting, the drive is working at this time. There is a problem but I can't put a finger on it.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Eddie
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post #11 of 12
6/18/04 at 12:13am

same problem here

I just recieved my new drive. At least I think it is another drive. I had the same problem, drive actually sounded different when I first got the computer. Made a loud very high pitched whissling sound when reading disks. Then sound changed to a different cluchunk chhunk kind of sound, soon after it would not read dvds at all. I sent it back to sager explaining in detail and recieved a drive back with return slip saying "drive worked for tech but they would still send me a drive." Well it works now but still the cliunk chunk sound, I'm kind of scared.
On another subject, my 56k modem sometimes takes over sound control and normal card will not show up as option in sound devices. Remedy was to uninstall modem and reboot. Anyone have similar probs?
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post #12 of 12
9/15/04 at 4:29pm
I just bought a dvd movie and Sims 2 on DVD. I put sims 2 into my Toshiba CD-RW/DVD drive. . (SD-R2412) the drive starts making noises as it tries to read. No reading happens. So i put in a normal CD and it reads fine. . it also burns cds fine. . . i put in the dvd movie and it would not read either.

I think its a driver problem, but toshiba does not have drivers for their product. Any ideas? Sounds like the same problem your having i think. . . the clunking noise is the reading head moving. . and i get a beep every time it fails and retries.

I see that this hasnt been posted in for three months or so . . so i suppose no answers have come about

I should also note that i'm at the dorm now and i forgot my driver disk . . . so i dont know if reinstalling drivers that come with the cd (if any for the drive) works.
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