My drive can read DVD\'s but does not recognize blank ones

[cindycat]

My drive does not RECOGNISE blank DVD discs it sees it as a CD. It does read pre recorded DVD and CD and it will record to a blank CD disc. I think the problem started when I was backing up all my movies discs to my hard drive when one of the SONY movies gave a lot of CRC error messages . Since then both the internal and external writers show the same problem , they do not RECOGNISE blank DVD discs , I can use my lap top to burn the DVD discs but when I attach the external drive to the laptop the same problem shows up , the internal laptop writer works fine.
I have tried all the obvious things like flash the drives , reload windows , reload all latest drivers etc etc . please help.

 

[soundguruman]

You hint at the possibility that you were trying to copy a copy guarded disk, and that this security somehow disabled your ability to read DVDs.
I would try a system restore, or a repair install of the operating system.
The directions for a repair install are located in this forum, sixth post from the top.
I will however warn you against using any free downloads that claim they will "fix problems". The only safe repair is with the microsoft XP disk. Remember what I told you.