Frida 2-disc DVD Not Recognized

[CaribbeanBlues]

Anyone else have a problem with Frida (Salma Hayek Oscar Nominated Film) dvd not recognized? I can't get past "No disc inserted."

[Woodstock]

It is kind of hard to get past the drive not being able to find what it thinks is a formatted disk.

Have you cleaned it? The longer a disk is in storage, the worse the chemical deposits from packaging can get.

[CaribbeanBlues]

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I expected an email alert and didn't get one, which is why it is taking me this long to check in.

The disc was cleaned. So was the second one when I exchanged the first. All my other discs work fine, but not only did I try to get a new set of discs thinking that might be the problem, but I tried the discs on three different computers. I also tried with AnyDVD running and without it. No matter none of them think a DVD disc has been loaded. I'm at a loss. I don't have a dvd player to watch, only my computer. I thought for certain someone else must have had a problem with this same version. T

[Woodstock]

In order for any of the programs to read a disk, the drive(s) have to recognize that it is formatted, and that the data forms the structure of a (DVD, CD, BD). If it cannot get that far, you're stuck.

If you've tried multiple drives, the common factor is the disk itself. Are the drives you tried Bluray drives, or was at least on of them a "plain old DVD drive"? Some DVDs are not readable with the type laser used for Blurays. Some drives compensate for that by also having a red laser available. And anything that makes it hard for the laser to focus on the little pits that make up the data will confuse the drive.

How did you clean the disk? Some of the chemicals used in packaging can accumulate on the disk. They're usually not "obviously" cloudy, but the're bad enough. Some can be cleaned with just water (damp, soft cloth). Other require alcohol to cut the chemicals (still using a soft cloth).

Try this: Take a soft cloth, soak it in a bit of higher-purity (70% or greater) isopropyl alcohol, and wipe from the center of the disk to the edge. Make a couple of gentle passes. Let the alcohol evaporate. Can you see a difference in the reflectivity where you cleaned? If so, a more thorough cleaning should fix things.

Another possibility - is the surface silver, or some other color? Some low-volume disks are produced on DVD-R or DVD+R media, "on demand". Some drives do NOT do well when reading "burned" media. I went through 3 sets of disks on one "on demand" title, all failing at the same place. At least those were recognized as DVDs, but they were still unreadable.

[CaribbeanBlues]

Again thank you. Having tried several other things it now appears the disc i "protected" with a bad sectors scheme. I tried using a brand new EXTERNAL drive and things behaved differently. Now it may be that it is just dirty, but I have to admit getting two copies of this movie with that problem seems unlikely to me. I will try cleaning with alcohol anyway, but if "bad sectors protection scheme" rings a bell with anyone please let me know.

[Woodstock]

Yes, it is possible to get multiple disks with the exact same problem. I went through two sets of the Hercules TV series AND two disks rented from Netflix to be able to get a good rip on one episode, which always failed at the same sector. It wasn't until I got out my 2003 Sony DVD drive and gave it a LOT of retries that it finally succumbed. Those were pressed disks (silver surface); the more recent DVD-R disks I got were another example.

[CaribbeanBlues]

Thank you.

[nukepicnic]

It's not you... there IS something specific about the Frida DVDs that won't allow drives to recognize them. I tried with my own copy, but 2 different drives spat them out without recognizing them, then a borrowed a copy from a friend and tried with the copy... both drives spat those out as well... it's how these discs were created... but they play in DVD and Blu Ray players just fine... haven't experienced this with any other disc so far.

[efunk42]

I found this thread because I'm currently trying to rip my Frida DVD and currently don't have a dedicated DVD player. Disc 1 is clean as can be, even polished it with Novish products, but MKV let alone window doesn't recognize that a disc has been inserted. I haven't tried disc 2, but it looks like I'll have to find a regular DVD player to see if these even play at all. Definitely seemed like something about the manufacturing process affecting these DVDs, I've never encountered this before, unless if it's been a scratched to oblivion disc.