The DVD in question is an LG DRD-8160B. It used to work fine but ever since hard drive format it has not been working properly. It will detect and runs cd's fine but it will not detect DVD's when I place any type of DVD in the drive it simply says 'please insert a disk into the drive'. I use windows xp home addition. Its been a real pain as bascialy now I just have a DVD drive acting as a basic cd-rom drive. Can anyone help?

It says in the manual that under windows xp no installation of any driver or software is needed, the LG website though does have firmware for the DVD ROM

I tried disconnecting it, rebooting, then reconnect it and reboot, see if windows then recognizes it/installs it properly but its still doing the same thing.

Ive also removed it from the device manager and let it install automaticaly again, which also did not work. Help! :-(

Hi and welcome to PCHF.

How long have you had the drive? Is it still under warranty?

I have seen this before and it was the same thing each time - the DVD laser had gone in the drive.

After looking over several forums it does seem to be not uncommon. Had the computer about 2 years or so. However itsjust strange that it hasnt been working since a windows reinstallation after a hard drive format. Could it be the lazer if it still reads normal cd's ok?

Yup, there are 2 lasers in most DVD drives, one for the CD's and one for the DVD's

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,14697,00.asp

Ok tried a DVD film and it actualy gets detected and runs ok, though ive tried 2 DVD+RW dvd's with data on but they dont get detected. Could it be due to the format of the DVD and the player perhaps being an old model?