Dell Inspiron 1420 is not able to read empty cds or DVDS. My I go to properties it shows empty space as 0. When I try to burn a Cd it says " Insert a blank CD"

SOURCE: Dell Latitude Dell DVD player

Hi
We will first start with these steps and let me if is still resolved or not.
1. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461
Do this step and restart your laptop. Let me know what kind of dvds are you using. Are they movies or with data.
2. Run a 32 bit dell diags on the drive. You can access Dell diagnostics by pressing F12 when you seeing the Dell logo when you start the system. You may have to try couple of times to get to the screen. It will show you one time boot menu. Select diagnostics. Alternatively, if you have Dell diagnostics or drivers cd, insert that and in the one time boot menu select cd dvd and press enter.
It will take you to the diagnostics menu. Select Test my system, then custom diags and then ran a diags on the drive. If they test fails it might be time to replace the drive. If you are in warranty talk to dell tech support and tell them that 32 bit diags on drive failed they will just replace the drive, if not in warranty let me know I will help you in ordering the spare parts online. Drive is not that costly.
3. IF the diags have passed and still having the issue boot system to safe mode and then go to My computer, right click the drive and click on explore. Check if you can see any contents of your dvd. If you can then the culprit is the OS or windows xp then we can do more steps. To access safe mode press F8 when u see the dell logo during start up.
Do share you experience so that I can know how it is working

Thank you
Rakesh
Expert in Dell Laptops.

SOURCE: dell dvd drive not reading vista os dvd

It more than likely won't due to it being an OS. It's usually down to copy protection.

Best thing to do is reset the PC and go into your BIOS settings, then change the boot priorities so it boots from your DVD drive, when you save these settings restart the PC. This will make the PC read from the DVD first instead of the Hard drive for the OS, should bring up a message saying "press any key to boot from disc", then when you do press something it should start up the disc and you can reformat from there.

SOURCE: Dell vostro 1510 dvd drive problem

This is likely a bad dvd drive. Usually when a DVD drive is going bad, it will first stop reading DVDs, but will read CDs just fine. I have replaced many drives that were having the same issue and with a new drive, problem is solved. It is a typical problem with DVD drives.

Jose Cada

• 3530 Answers
• Posted on Apr 06, 2010

SOURCE: The drive does not read CDs nor can I burn a blank

make sure you cdrom is being detected by your computer. you can actually check this by going to MY COMPUTER. you should see you CDROM drive there. if CDROM is not present, please proceed with this troubleshooting.

1. Click Start
   Collapse this imageExpand this image , and then click All Programs.
2. Click Accessories, and then click Run.
3. Type regedit, and then click OK. Collapse this imageExpand this image If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.
4. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.
   
   Note You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You do not have to remove that entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you do not see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 8.
6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
7. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
8. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.
   
   Note If you do not see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web site.
9. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
10. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
11. Exit Registry Editor.
12. Restart the computer.

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SOURCE: dell 9150 dvd/cd drive not working

i see the D drive but it says recovery but it will no longer give me use of my dvd/cdrom but if i go into Devise manager there is a ! can't get it too work anymore not that old never dropped
help