Odd DVD Problem - DVDs play in DVD player but not PC

StormHD

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Hi,

A couple of months back I created a video DVD from various home video clips using the Windows DVD creator software.

All was fine. It played in my PC and it played in my DVD player. My PC required a rebuild and now the only copy of these videos I have are on this DVD, so I tried making a backup.

When I put the DVD in my PC (Running Windows 7 Pro) it states that the DVD is blank and asks me how it should use it (e.g. in the same way as a USB drive). Worried that I'd lost all of my video, I put it in my standalone DVD player, and it plays fine.

So that's the problem. I've got a DVD which plays fine in any standalone DVD player (I've tried a few), but shows as blank in either my PC or laptop DVD drives.

Obviously the data is there, and I'm sure the disc was burned correctly, if not, how could it play in a standalone dvd player?!

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to fix this? I've tried various DVD burning utils, but as soon as you browse to the DVD drive I get the same "This DVD is blank, how do you want me to treat it" message.
 
When you say rebuild: what did that entail. There's no question that the data is on the disk and that the disk is ok. What's changed in your system? Try repositioning the disk in the drive tray.
 
I just upgraded Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 Pro.

Nothing's changing physically. I've tried the disc in 2 computers (1 desktop, 1 laptop) and both state that the disc is blank. So it knows that there's a disc in the tray, and it knows it's a DVD, it just thinks that it's blank.

I just can't understand it. It's definitely not blank because the video plays back on DVD players. So why are computers seeing it differently?

If it related to lead in/out tracks then surely the DVD wouldn't play on a stand alone player, would it?

Crazy.

The only way I can think of fixing this is trying one of the standalone DVD burners used to record TV... but I don't know anyone who's got one.

Or, as it's got to be an OS/software issue, I might try downloading linux and seeing if I can get the data off that way...
 

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