What optical drive do I need to read old home made DVDs?

Stuart Wright

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I've been given an archive of videos burned to DVD format a few years ago which I want to back up.
They play fine on a Blu-ray player, but when I put the discs into my optical drive (an Asus DRW-24D5MT) on my Windows 10 system, it doesn't recognise them as valid.
What optical drive do I need to read the discs?
Thanks.
 
Do you have a Blu-ray drive in a PC?
There could be a few things involved.
 
According to the Asus website that drive supports all the common writable DVD formats:

Anything more obscure is unlikely to be recognised by a standalone blu-ray player.

Can you expand a bit on the symptoms? What is it exactly that's claiming the disks are not valid? Does the drive show the discs are inserted? Does anything show up in windows explorer?
 
Do you have a Blu-ray drive in a PC?
my optical drive (an Asus DRW-24D5MT) on my Windows 10 system
According to the Asus website that drive supports all the common writable DVD formats:

Anything more obscure is unlikely to be recognised by a standalone blu-ray player.

Can you expand a bit on the symptoms? What is it exactly that's claiming the disks are not valid? Does the drive show the discs are inserted? Does anything show up in windows explorer?
The disks play fine in my panasonic blu-ray player.
In the PC absolutely nothing happens when I put the disks in the drive. When I click on the drive in file explorer, the tray opens and I get the pop up to insert a disc.
I’m thinking that the discs aren’t compatible with the drive and I need a different one.
When I was given the disks, I was told they are CD DVDs. Not sure whether that’s accurate or what it means.
 
From that I suspect it is some kind of mixed format disc that Windows 10 can't cope with.
Afraid that's all I have.
 
DVDs deteriorate over time and your blu ray might just be better at reading them. Try another DVD drive and see if it's any better.
 
I'd guess that as the most likely cause. Disc marginally out of spec (due to deterioration maybe) and/or drive marginally out of spec (again, maybe due to deterioration). And between them the disc surface is unreadable.

Or maybe (just maybe) the discs were made (probably) on a Panasonic recorder and were not finalised/closed. In which case a file recovery software might be able to force-extract data.

(If you haven't solved it by then, bring them with you next time you're heading this way and I'll see if anything I have will read them).
 
That is why I mentioned a Blu-ray drive.
It would still use a red laser to read the disc but the head positioning should be more accurate.
 
What model ?
Panasonic DMP-BDT220. The discs work fine on my friends Blu-ray player too.
Honestly I don't think there is a physical problem with the discs which is stopping them from being read.
I think it's a format issue.
I may take them to a local computer shop to see if they have an external drive that can read them.
 
Honestly I don't think there is a physical problem with the discs which is stopping them from being read.

I would agree with you. The fact that they work on a player says that they have been created correctly as the disks would have to adhere to specific requirements to autorun.

What are the disks like ? are they just ordinary recordable DVDs ? Do they have labels on the non-playing side ? In the past I have found,sometimes, that recorded disks won't play in a certain drive but have found that putting a disk label on them makes them work.

I may take them to a local computer shop to see if they have an external drive that can read them.

Remember to take a portable drive with you as well so you have something to dump contents on to if required.
 

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