All of my drives recognize their contents upon startup or restart and work fine, but if the disk that was in there at startup is removed and another disk is put in, the drive fails to recognize that there is anything in it. This is the case with all drives - dvd, cd burner, floppy, and even a remote drive, a digital camera attached to a USB port. Attach the digital camera and the software detects no camera. Restart with the camera connected to a USB port and the camera is recognized and everything works fine. Start with a dvd in the drive and it plays fine, but take it out and replace it with another dvd and the drive behaves as if there is nothing inside. I cannot install Civ III because it is a 3-disk set and when I put in the next disk it tells me to put in the next disk, which is in there.
I have cleaned the drivers and checked for updates. I have stripped my computer, reformatted and completely reinstalled XP and all software. I brought the tower to work and our IT guy did a scan and assures me that the hardware is all good. Norton is up to date and I have scanned the full system.
Odd thing is it seems to be degenerative. Long ago it only affected dvd player but then everything. Downloading from the digital camera via USB worked fine for two years and then went bad. When I reformatted a couple weeks ago everything seemed to be corrected but now I'm back to the same problem across the board.
Any help would earn my eternal gratitude. It's a 3-year-old Gateway.