Windows 7 W7 thinks CDs are VCDs - please help!

[Darrencross]

Hi everyone.

I'm using a new Toshiba laptop with Windows 7, and I have a problem with the CD/DVD drive that I can't seem to find an answer to anywhere.

Whenever I put a CD in the drive, W7 seems to think it's a VCD and begins trying to play it with Windows Media Player. This happens with every CD that I put into the drive that isn't software or a DVD etc. Specifically I'm trying to read old CDs that I know have lots of images on, but W7 is having none of it.

I've been into the auto play options and tried everything from turning autoplay off, telling the machine to ask me every time and even resetting to default, but nothing works. Even when I open the folders to look at the files W7 still thinks it's a VCD.

I've tried this on at least ten different discs that I know have pictures on, as they all load up fine on other machines.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Mitchell_A]

Hello, and welcome to the Windows 7 Forums.
Have you tried navigating to the disc manually using Explorer?

 

[Darrencross]

Hello, and welcome to the Windows 7 Forums.
Have you tried navigating to the disc manually using Explorer?

Hi. Thanks for the welcome and the quick response.

I've tried opening the discs manually to look at the files, but even then it still thinks it's a VCD and only displays a few folders that make no sense to me, one of which says VCD.

When I open all the folders up they appear to be empty, even though I know the discs have pictures on them (I've double checked this).

Any other ideas please?

Thanks again,

Darren

 

[Mitchell_A]

Did you perform a clean install of Windows 7 or have you "upgraded" from Vista?

 

[Darrencross]

Did you perform a clean install of Windows 7 or have you "upgraded" from Vista?

It's a clean install on a brand-new machine. Everything else works fine with the drive - DVDs and software run normally, it's just personal CDs that I've saved things to that it seems to be recognising as VCDs.

 

[Trouble]

It's a clean install on a brand-new machine. Everything else works fine with the drive - DVDs and software run normally, it's just personal CDs that I've saved things to that it seems to be recognising as VCDs.

Is it possible that when you saved data to these CDs, you were using some type of third party software like Roxio or Nero, that allowed these CDs to act like a virtual disk that supports anytime dragging and dropping and that currently you don't have that software installed so the format is being misinterpreted by Windows 7?

 

[Saltgrass]

Trouble kind of touched on my question, which is, did you make the CDs and if so, how.

Could they be set up something like a slide show? What folders are on the CD?

 

[Darrencross]

Trouble kind of touched on my question, which is, did you make the CDs and if so, how.

Could they be set up something like a slide show? What folders are on the CD?

Hi Trouble and Saltgrass, thanks for your help.

Yes I think it is possible the pictures were put on to the disc using Nero (it's actually my mother's laptop and her discs, so I imagine she would have used a third party program rather than dragging and dropping the files on to the disc herself).

I'm guessing the solution here (so she doesn't lose her pics) would be to use a machine that will open up these kind of files (I'm sure they'll work on my Mac) and transfer them onto a USB stick, then copy from that to her laptop?

That will work, won't it?

Thanks again for your help - much appreciated.

 

[Saltgrass]

You request is one of the reasons I asked what type of folders were on the CD. If they were put on as a VCD, you will probably have to use some software to extract them.

If you feel like it, Nero usually has trial downloads of their software and it is fully functional for 30 days or so. I haven't done that type of work in a couple of years, but I still have Nero on another computer if you want to try.

 

[RAK]

Open the Control Panel (icon view) and select Autoplay.
Scroll down the list to Blank CD and DVD
Select, from the options, Take no action or Ask me everytime.
You may also be offered other options, as to a choice of software to burn with..etc. Choose again, whichever suits you.

Complete the same with some of the others on the list - particularly "mixed content"