T61 DVD drive doesn't recognise some DVDs and shows them as blank. Help !!!

[prasoonblueluck]

I bought a T61 in november last year .....i have recently found out that my DVD drive is unable to read certain DVDs that my friends had burned for me. The windows explorer shows the data as " 109 MB free of 4.37 GB " but i m unable to view or browse the files inside the DVD as the explorer shows the DVD to blank nd gives the message "Drag files in this folder to add them to the disk."

The same DVD runs on my other system....so i guess there's nothing wrong with the DVD.
This problem happens with only some DVDs....and the drive works fine with the others.
Please can anyone give the soln. to this problem !!!!

[icantux]

Greetings,

Welcome to the forums!

Could you post the part number or make of the DVD-RW unit in your machine. The part number is located on the DVD-RW (you can take it out when the system's turned off), otherwise you can find the make in Device Manager under "DVD/CD-ROM Drives".

Also what disks do you use?

The reason I ask is because some drives do not read/write very well (or even fail to recognize) disks of a particular make - usually the cheaper disks - this for various reasons: the dye used is of inferior quality and you may be getting bad burns with those disks and the drive itself may fail to read the tracks properly. So in your case, even though your other burners may burn the disks, it's possible that the drive in your T61 will not like the disks and then report errors or not even read the information on the disk!

Regardless, I would recommend testing your drive with Nero CD-DVD Speed (freeware, no installation required) and Infotool (form Nero, free download no installation required) to check the drive and the quality of the disks you currently have. This little program is very good at detecting the disk info engraved on the inside sector and report to you the general quality based on the code.

Also, another recommendation is to use higher quality disks for your burning needs. Depending on the burner you have, it may not burn information with regular quality on certain disks.

Recommended all-purpose disks include Sony, Verbatim or any batch of disks manufactured in the USA, Singapore or Japan - those offer the best overall general-purpose burning quality.  I personally never purchase disks made in either China or Taiwan, because the factories there tend to produce lower-grade media (using inferior quality dye) and the quality assurance is somewhat lacking - these factories produce disks for a number of "brand names" (Memorex, Maxell, Fuji, etc). I often find that 10 or more disks out of 50 will be bad resulting in burns that are corrupt (checking using various tools, including Nero CD-DVD speed). On one occasion after purchasing Fuji disks (made in Taiwan) there were 38 bad disks out of 50 total!!!!

 If you wish to go a step higher, then I would recommend you purchase Taiyo-Yuden disks (those are of the highest quality media and can be used for archival purposes). Your drive would have no problem recognizing any of the above-mentioned disks!

Hope this helps
Steve



Message Edited by icantux on 06-25-2008 02:47 PM

[wjli2]

This means he have not authorized the discs that he burnt, sometimes some drive don't recognise non-authorised discs from other computers. Just ask him to finish the session of his disc, it should help you with your problem, give it try anyway.

[nferreira]

Hi,

I have a similar problem with a T61p w/ Vista.I tested different cd-rom discs and different cd-rom drivers, after replacing with a new cd-rom drive from Lenovo, the problem is the same.Some time the drive can read the disc other time recognize as a blank disk.

I notice that reinserting the drive then I can read the disc. So is the problem from the t61p drive bay?

[ROK]

I agree.

It sounds like the disk hasn't been finalized.  The disk needs to be closed-out so it can be read by most players.