DVDs not working or being seen but the CDs work ok

[Simon]

Today I ran into a problem. I use USB thumb drives so often, I can't recall the last time I viewed a DVD or burned a DVD. I popped in a blank DVD in order to store some files and K3B told me the blank wasn't in there. After trying several blanks... I thought the drive was broken.

So I tried to play a music CD. That worked so I tried a movie DVD. That failed to play and the program said there was no media present. So how is it my CD works but not my DVD? I can burn or play a CD but not the DVD.

     *-scsi
          physical id: 2
          logical name: scsi0
          capabilities: emulated
        *-cdrom
             description: DVD-RAM writer
             product: CDDVDW SH-S222A
             vendor: TSSTcorp
             physical id: 0.0.0
             bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
             logical name: /dev/cdrom
             logical name: /dev/cdrw
             logical name: /dev/dvd
             logical name: /dev/dvdrw
             logical name: /dev/sr0
             version: SB02
             capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
             configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc

[Rog132]

Quick test

I have had a DVD writer which degraded to the CD player.

The quick test is to try it with another operating system. If you don't have a multiboot system then you could test it with the liveCD - started from the USB stick.

[Simon]

I pulled the DVD rom and gave it to an IT person here at the campus to inspect. He tells me that DVD/CD ROMs have 2 lasers and the DVD laser might be dirty or damaged. Learn something new every day.

[dequire]

In that case, you should mark the thread as "solved"

[Simon]

Well the verdict isn't in on it yet. If he gets back to me and says not a hardware issue then it is not solved.

==Update==

Yep, it is dead. :P