Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and dvd

Broken laptop multi-drive and low cash flow - please help me find the best & cheapest solution

scrute — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:17:31 -0800

Should I try and get my laptop's multi-drive repaired, or just buy an external one? I have a Toshiba Satellite U300, and in the last week or two the DVD/CD-RW drive has stopped working. And I mean stopped. There is absolutely no power to this thing - as far as my computer is concerned it's just not there, and the only way to open and close it is to use a paper clip or other similarly sized object on the manual eject. But it does open, so I know it's not jammed.

I admit, I'm not always as careful with my laptop as I should be - I've traveled a lot and it's gone with all over the place and I've admitted that I've probably just gone and physically broken it. I have no idea what something like this will cost to repair, but given that external drives seem to be available for under $100 and that I won't be traveling as much and won't be needing to take the drive with me everywhere, does it make more sense to go external rather than trying to repair or replace this one. I don't want to have to pay someone to look at it, only to find out that I can't afford to fix it.

My questions, specifically:

1) Given that cost is the biggest factor for me right now, and that I would really like a functioning drive of some sort, what is likely to be the best solution for me?

2) If the answer is an external drive, is there anything I need to know before I buy one, like things I should be looking for or avoiding?

PS - I have a mix of formats on my DVDs, picked up from North America and overseas - my laptop never had any problems dealing with that - it would be ideal if the external drive had the same flexibliltiy.

DVD Shrink rips slower on my new Vista laptop! HALP!

wastelands — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:23:25 -0800

Speeding up DVD Shrink ripping on my laptop? I bought a new MSI laptop, which is otherwise powerful (Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz, 4 GB RAM, etc.). But ripping DVDs in DVD Shrink is about 3x as slow as on my old Dell!

How could it change so dramatically? Is this Vista related? I went from XP to Vista.

I tried turning on the "overleaving" or whatever feature in DVD Shrink; didn't help.

Built-in DVD player no longer recognised by laptop

fantasticninety — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:39:03 -0800

How do I reinstall my built-in DVD drive? A while ago, when trying to remove my USB key, I accidentally clicked the option to safely remove my DVD drive. Now I don't know what to choose in order for my laptop to recorgnise my DVD drive again (I never took it out, I only clicked the option to remove it, and now when I click the eject button it doesn't recognise the DVD player).

Replacing a Laptop DVD Drive

gfrobe — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:50:19 -0800

I need to replace a DVD drive on a Samsung R50 laptop. The drive in there now is a slimline (Teac DV W28EA). Do I need to replace with another slimline or will any standard laptop DVD drive fit?

PAL DVD's playable on US computers?

paphun123 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:20:26 -0800

I'm accustomed to watching DVDs produced for the United States market on my laptop using the VLC software player. Using this set up, will I be able to watch PAL DVDs made for the UK or European markets without any difficulties? I don't want deal with any ripping, conversions, flashing DVD drive memories to change regions etc.

Burning CD/DVDs on Laptop

zzazazz — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:14:50 -0800

I own this laptop and I love it except I am having trouble with the cd/dvd burner. It reads just fine but when I try to burn, no matter what program I use, it doesn't burn properly. Sometimes it leaves the disc blank or leaves a song here and there blank while other songs are burned properly. Do you think it's a defective burner or something to do with how it communicates with the OS?

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions?

yoga — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:57:34 -0800

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions? [posted for grouse] I have a ThinkPad X61 with no internal optical drive so this will be my primary CD/DVD reader as well.

Should I try to get a FireWire drive or does it not matter? Any particular brands or models I should seek or avoid? It would be really nice if there were one that would play DVDs from any region or could be programmed to do the same.

Any U.S. vendors I could order from and get in the next week? Or should I just go out to Fry's and get something there? I'm in Austin, TX, for the rest of 2007.

Also, I'd like to install Windows XP from the drive (Vista is awful); will I have any problem booting from an external CD drive?

How do I convert VHS to DVDs or digital files using my laptop?

dorisfromregopark — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:22:58 -0800

How do I convert VHS to DVDs or digital files using my laptop? I have a Dell Inspiron 9200 laptop with a DVD burner built in. My goal over the next few weeks was to take our library of family VHS videos and convert them to DVDs. After searching online (including this askme thread), I settled on the the ADS Tech DVD Xpress DX2. It seemed like just what I was looking for: I could either copy the tapes directly to a recordable DVD or grab the video off the VHS and edit them as I wish on my computer. I ordered the item, installed the programs that come with the device...and my usb port gave a power surge failure and my computer would not recognize it.

That failure led me back online and I briefly considered the WinTV-PVR-150 before I realized that this device is made for PCs. I now worry that I will be unable to convert these tapes using a laptop.

Is there any way I can do this using a laptop? Will the usb power surge failure only occur with devices that do not have an independent power supply (the DVD Xpress did not have its own power supply)? Do any such devices exist? I would rather not spend $20/tape sending these away to a professional. I'm hoping any solution costs ~$100, but I'm willing to listen to any feasible option using a laptop (I have no access to a pc short of purchasing one).

Thanks in advance for any help, friend(s)!

I don't want to start from scratch!

kosher_jenny — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:16:17 -0800

After I installed a new hard drive on my laptop my DVD burner/player no longer works, but plays and burns CDs just fine. I own a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop (running XP) and some months ago the hard drive crashed (lost all my data) and I had to install a new one as well as all the programs I lost, etc. Everything else on my computer is now working just fine, with the exception of the DVD player and burner. When I insert a blank DVD I am prompted to format the disk but the formatting always fails. I am also unable to watch regular DVDs regardless of the software I use to view them (mediaplayer, VLC, and various viewer programs on the DVDs themselves). I am still able to listen to music CDs and record data to blank CDs.

I've tried Dell's tech support, and they said that my only option is for me to back up all my data and restore everything on my laptop to the default settings! Surely there is a less drastic measure to take?

Help my Toshiba laptop recognize DVD-Rs.

ootsocsid — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:15:19 -0800

Help my Toshiba laptop recognize DVD-Rs. Posting for a friend: I recently reinstalled Windows on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, restoring the factory settings, including Sonic RecordNow and Sonic DLA. This has resulted in the computer no longer reading or recognizing DVD-Rs (though it still recognizes DVD-RWs). It also won't burn to DVD-R, acting as if the disc is either not in the drive or already full. How can I get the computer to start reading DVD-Rs again? Uninstalling Sonic hasn't helped, nor has installing additional CD burning programs.

Looking for a laptop for DVD viewing.

Gortuk — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 08:03:22 -0800

Looking for a laptop for DVD viewing. I'm looking into buying an inexpensive low-end laptop notebook for use when travelling. The primary purpose for this would be to watch DVDs and basic web browsing/email access. Other than that the only critical feature is a healthy battery life (at least 5 hours). I don't need to play games, do photo editing, or any CPU-intensive tasks on this system as I have a good home system for use otherwise.

Any recommendations for a system/brand to purchase? I notice a lot of Acer laptops in my general price range, does anyone have experience using those for DVD viewing?

Mac heads please note - I'm not opposed to an iBook but a) low end iBooks seem to be about $400 more expensive than a corresponding PC laptop, and b) watching a DVD on my friend's 17" PowerBook, the picture had frequent noticeable lines during action sequences. If you're recommending an Apple product please let me know what makes them worth the extra $$$ and if there are any ways to improve picture quality on an iBook/Powerbook (I've seen references to Apple's default DVD software not being the best?).

DVD brightness on a laptop

bingo — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:17:16 -0800

How can I increase the brightness in the image of a DVD played on my laptop? The computer's built-in brightness controls (this is a Winbook J4, so it's Fn-F8) do not affect the brightness of the DVD image. Of the three DVD playing applications I have (RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, and InterVideo), none seem to have a brighness contol.

As fate would have it, I'm trying to watch DVDs of Six Feet Under...a show with a lot of literal darkness in it. But even the bright scenes come out pretty dark. Am I screwed?

Car Harness or back seat holder for Laptops?

chococat — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:01:18 -0800

I have a laptop (Powerbook G4 12") that I want to use in our tiny (Mazda Protege5) car for showing DVD's to my kids on long drives. The kids are squished into 3 child carseats in the back (they actually fit nicely). The problem is WHERE to put the laptop. I've searched on Google and the only back-of-seat harnesses I've seen are for DVD players 7-9" in size. Lots of people have wedged the computer into the space in between the two front seats, but that space is way too small in our car. Placing the computer in the lap of the kid in the middle is not an option, as it will result in a grouchy kid with a hot lap and probably a wrecked Powerbook. Any suggestions?
Again, I checked on Google and I also searched the Ask Mefi archives, so I'm sorry if I'm a moron and this has been asked before. Thanks.

Why can't I burn a Knoppix DVD ISO on a WinXP laptop?

rwhe — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 04:29:54 -0800

I'm trying to burn the Knoppix 4.0 DVD ISO on my wife's second-hand Averatec Windows XP laptop. I have tried almost a dozen DVD burning programs without success. Most of them can't see there's a blank DVD in the drive. What's up? It seems to be at least partly an ASPI thing, but I went to Adaptec, got the drivers, installed them, and now their utility says the laptop is up to date. (ASPI was completely missing before.) I've tried both DVD+R and DVD-R with identical results. Even Microsoft's own dvdburn.exe command-line utility can't see the drive. FWIW, we have burned CDs with no problem, and DVD burning software came with the machine, so it's capable in theory.

I'm really lost here. I hate Windows. I'd burn the DVD on my latest Linux box, except that the DVD drive is currently occupied by a Knoppix CD, which can't be removed while the computer is running. The plan is to burn the Knoppix DVD somewhere else, so I can boot from that instead of the CD, and install it forevermore. Your assistance in this enterprise would be appreciated.

Now you're playing with power

kensanway — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:44:19 -0800

I have DVDs that play on my laptop but not on the standard DVD Player. Short of buying a cheap DVD player from an Asian grocery store, is there a way I can use a cable to play it on my laptop but watch the result on my big fat TV? My laptop's an inspiron 1100--by Dell. (I know, I'm sorry.) It doesn't seem to have the sort of audio-out hole that most digital cameras have.

Pismo DVD Drive Dead?

AllesKlar — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:03:49 -0800

I recently acquired a G3/Pismo via ebay and decided to upgrade the hard drive. Upon doing so, my dvd/cd drive no longer functions; Help me sort through my options! I am a new mac "owner" but casual user; I am well versed in pc hardware and the like. The old hard drive didn't have any jumpers, so I assumed that master / slave is determined >somehow< by the machine / Os; The drive worked with both cd's and dvd's prior to the hd upgrade; The only drive that shows up in system profiler is the wd scorpio drive. "About this mac" 500 MHz PowerPC G3 512 Ram, Max OS 10.3.9; I'm curious if I some how damaged a ribbon, or something when replacing with the new hd; CD's and DVD's will spin up, but will not mount on the desktop; I've seen reports of the drives going bad, but it seems suspicious that the drive would quit working after installing the new hd. I've also seen vague accounts of soldering "things" to designate master / slave etc. Is there anything else I can do to trouble shoot or fix this problem? I've got external dvd drives, but that negates "portability." Also, suggestions / experiences with using a "cheap" alternative by replacing drive in caddy with pc / oem parts? Thanks in advance for you help and or suggestions!

Windows cannot read from this disk.

fletchmuy — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:15:37 -0800

Why did my DVD player on my IBM ThinkPad laptop stop being able to read Audio CDs? It still plays DVDs fine, but when I insert an audio CD I get "Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted..." I've searched all over for a solution to this problem and have found people with similar problems, but haven't been able to find a solution. [more inside] I'm 99% sure it's a registry problem but don't know where to start. I had installed some shareware MP3 to wave converter and think that it might have made some registry entries that weren't rolled back when I uninstalled it. Other than that, I'm stumped.

And, by the way, it really upsets me that I can't go to Microsoft's web site, enter my error and get a list of possible reasons for it. When I go to their knowledge base and search for the error message, it takes me to a generic Windows XP help page. Ugh!