Acer Aspire VN7-791G Win10 - Optical Drive problem

Hi,

I have the Acer Aspire VN7-791G Nitro Laptop. I'm using it everyday since almost a half year now. It came with Win8.1 and I upgraded manually to Win10. I also have several other windows version as virtual machines and I just wanna say the laptop has performed wonderful since I started to use it.
This model has the MATSHITA UJ8E2Q DVD RAM drive (I understand there are other optical drives including a BDWriter available for this model). Win 10 - Boot time is 5-6
seconds and like I said everything worked fast and flawless until I got this problem.

Two days ago I was watching a DVD, battery (aprox 20% remaining). I paused the movie shortly to answer my phone and resumed it 5 minutes later. It ran another 10 seconds (buffer) and then stopped. I was using VLC as media player so after waiting a bit, I wanted to close the application and that didn't work. I didn't pay too much attention, I thought there's a disc error, or some power management related issued (that's the only problem I had with the laptop till now. Sometimes when on battery, running a virtual machine, if the laptop goes to sleep I get blue screens after coming out of sleep mode and I have to restart the windows)

I started task manager I tried to close vlc from there,it took forever to close the player. I restarted the laptop. Everything started normally, and I watched another 10 minutes of the movie. It was almost ending so I thought I'll manage to see the movie without charging the battery. 2-3 minutes before the movie's end the laptop went to sleep (battery low), so I did plugged the charger and tried to resume, but then the VLC frezeed again. I restarted again and this time I took about 2 minutes to restart and boot.

Yesterday I started to investigate the problem. I saw there are many people complaining about DVD Drives issues Win8.1 & Win10. I tried removing the device from Device Manager, restarted and to my surprise it wasn't automatically reinstalled. I tried removing/unistalling the ATA/ATAPI controller, the laptop refused to start again. It went into a loop (ACER Screen) restarting, shutting down... so I shut it down manually by holding down the power key.
I went to repair mode chosed troubleshooting, it said the computer cannot start.. so I shut it down it again manually let it a few seconds and reapplied power. It took 4 minutes to boot but it finally started.

The dvd drive was missing from explorer / device manager (not even listed as hidden). After another restart I thought checking the Bios setting (IDE/SATA AHCI). Unfortunately there's no way to change drive settings in this Bios, but the ATAPI drive was missing too !! Another shutdown and fiddling with windows registry (added key - Controller0, cleaned the entries, reinstalled the AHCI driver... multiple times/different versions, I currently have the intel(R) 8 Rapid Storage Technology utility and driver) I thought well.. it gotta be a hardware issue.
I booted linux from a usb drive. The dvd works fine. I copied some files from a dvd to my hard drive, then tried another dvd, played some media. I went to Bios again and the drive was listed as MATSHITA UJ8E2Q under ATAPI. Rebooted Win10 and started to look for MATSHITA drivers cause the windoze didn't automatically installed it.
After another few hours of sweat I managed to get the drive installed somehow but it's listed under "unknown / matshita UJ8E2Q DVD RAM" . The dvd icon reappeared in my computer. I inserted a disc, the drive is performing normally (Eject and usual noises when the disc is being spinned). It read the content of the disc, I started playing a movie again but it stopped working again, same freezing. I closed the windows media player and when I looked in my computer the dvd drive was missing again.

After many tries I got it somehow working again. But it's still listed as unknown (device manager) and if I pause playing a movie I have to restart the windows in order to resume playing, cause the drive disappears again.

I also noticed this: When the drive is missing from windows and I go to BIOS after restart the drive is missing from there too. Only a cold reboot (shut down and restart) will make the drive reappear in bios and only then I can reinstall it in windows.

Because its working spotless under linux (I even used a live CD, booted in legacy mode and selected DVD as boot device) I am 98% sure this is not a hardware problem.
I also unistalled Daemon Tools and IMG Burn to make sure there are no conflicts with virtual devices drivers.. just to check this on the list.

Rolling back to win 8.1 or reinstalling windows is not a way I wanna take. I also need the dvd drive and I won't go for an external drive solution. There are so many reports about win10 updates screwing up the dvd functionality (wifi, usb... too, but that's another discussion). I didn't find any dedicated MATSHITA drivers on the web and I pretty much tried all I could think of and all the possible solutions I could find till now.

I'll be happy if anyone comes with an advice/working solution. Thanks in advance.

Accepted answers

prototype

I realize it's been almost 2 years since I first opened this thread. I never got notifications in my email and I forgot.

Yesterday I got notified about new messages in this thread so this is my answer for all of you outthere who might have the problem I had:

I haven't been able to find a sw solution and since I needed the dvd drive I bought a new one and changed it. Thank you JordanB for the pointers. I wanted to buy a Bluray device at that time, but it was much more expensive. The new DVD drive costed me about 25$ a bluray RW unit was about 100$.

I remember I spent a lot of time and tried everything that came to my mind. I'm still not sure the old drive was hw busted, but after I replaced it I never had any problems again.

All comments

JordanB

@prototype

I'm going to give you a couple links where a couple other people are having problems too with I assume Windows 10 1709. I don't know how to fix your problem other than Google searching for answers or searching this forum. As a last resort, I'm going to give you parts list that came with your computer and how to uninstall/install......just in case the Matshita is the problem. You might be able to find a cheaper DVD or BD on newegg or amazon. I have no idea if replacing part and using a different part would fix your problem. I believe Panasonic owns Matshita. But maybe the Panasonic Blu-Ray will work? IDK. I don't have any more suggestions....good luck.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/536715/cd-dvd-room-missing

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/538204/dvd-ram-uj8e2q

Turn off computer

Disconnect AC Charger

Remove SD card or Dummy SD card (if applicable)

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/450477/predator-17-bluray-drive-model-number

http://www.notebooksolutions.ca/zc/acer-original-optical-drive-ac88472-79094.html

http://www.notebooksolutions.ca/zc/acer-original-optical-drive-ac83210-69760.html

http://www.notebooksolutions.ca/zc/acer-original-optical-drive-ac83733-69574.html

Edit: I would also make sure I had the latest BIOS.

prototype

thanks a lot man.

I actually thought about changing the drive, maybe upgrading to bluray, but I've this strong feeling the problem is not the drive it self. Like I said in my previous post, linux recognized the drive, it boots from it too and all the problems I described here are only present when I boot win10 from my current ssd drive.
Second argument: a quick and much broader google search "win10 dvd problem" lists about 8 million results, most of them include "my drive stopped working after an update". I mean this is kinda typical MS.. screwing up compatibility or creating conflicts between HW resources after BS updates that suppose to solve some other problem. So I wouldn't bet my money on a suddenly "faulty DVD " over a buggy win update/patch whatever.

and last thing, from what I see all those drives listed as original replace parts are also MATSHITA. Panasonic owns MATSHITA like you said.

Oh and what bothers me the most, I've read 100+ pages containing the same question/problems and solutions to it. Not an acer related problem. Sony Acer LEnovo and desktop computers too. The problem seems to exist since 2015 and I couldn't find a fix for it.
Still waitin for ideas. Anyone ?

PaulQ

Have you found a solution to this? My drive vanished after the 1803 (April 2018) update. It appeared briefly at one point but it's been gone a while. Nothing shows in the device manager. I agree - I don't think it's a hardware problem.

I forgot to mention. I completely wiped and reinstalled Windows to try and get my DVD drive back. Nothing. And I can still open it, it still responds mechanically.

PaulQ

PaulQ said:

Have you found a solution to this? My drive vanished after the 1803 (April 2018) update. It appeared briefly at one point but it's been gone a while. Nothing shows in the device manager. I agree - I don't think it's a hardware problem.

I forgot to mention. I completely wiped and reinstalled Windows to try and get my DVD drive back. Nothing. And I can still open it, it still responds mechanically.

Still hoping there's a solution. Anyone?

PondyDave2

I had this same problem but did not spot it for most of this year as I don't use my DVD-ROM much. I tried all of the fixes on here and on the Microsoft Help Site. So decided to google Microsoft Help and asked for a call back. The first guy failed and after about 2 hours booked me a next level technician. He took 4.5 hours and eventually fixed it. He asked me to play the DVD in my drive. The Rocky music score started to play! He is writing crib notes for his colleagues so all us MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ8E2Q owners can get our computers back. Windows 10 also trashed my internet and I had Microsoft fix that as well, though at the time I was unaware of the drive problem. So MS technicians have spent a day working on my machine because of their company's updates.

BRSTURZLJR2

Mine still doesn't work . . . I've read soooo many pages of inquiries and questions, but nothing seems to change this problem. SIGH!
I sure wish that PondyDave2 had the ability to magically fix mine too! <SMILE>

prototype

I realize it's been almost 2 years since I first opened this thread. I never got notifications in my email and I forgot.

Yesterday I got notified about new messages in this thread so this is my answer for all of you outthere who might have the problem I had:

I haven't been able to find a sw solution and since I needed the dvd drive I bought a new one and changed it. Thank you JordanB for the pointers. I wanted to buy a Bluray device at that time, but it was much more expensive. The new DVD drive costed me about 25$ a bluray RW unit was about 100$.

I remember I spent a lot of time and tried everything that came to my mind. I'm still not sure the old drive was hw busted, but after I replaced it I never had any problems again.

aphanic

Yeah... @BRSTURZLJR2 necroposted, but it's alright since we have OP here haha (try to open a new thread next time please

But you know what? After reading through your opening post I was going to reply 2 things:

Very well detailed scenario, you pretty much did all of the troubleshooting yourself and there was little else for other people to suggest things.
To me, it all pointed to a hardware error, if I were to wager the controller in your old drive was busted or almost giving up the ghost. It was working intermittently, didn't properly identified itself to the OS, etc. looked like a hardware fault (either in that controller or the busses and intermediate controllers that connect it to the system). Even though it worked in Linux... that kind of threw me off a little bit.

But then I saw the post was from early 2018 and I thought WTF... this ought to be fixed by now haha. A quick diag for your problem @BRSTURZLJR2 would be to swap your unit for another one, or even a caddy to put another SATA drive inside of it and see if there are any connection errors or if everything appears in the device manager as expected.

prototype

one more thing..

After posting my reply I remembered how it drove me nuts, trying to figure out what was wrong. I searched everywhere, every forum, every website containing even remote information about acer laptops, optical drives, matshita dvd drives and so on. I even installed a bunch of different drivers (some of them with legacy hw support) and then went to install new sets of bus drivers (for intel chipsets). After buying the new dvd drive and replacing the (*suspected) faulty one, I was pretty worried that I'll have to reinstall the os too, because I didn't make a registry backup and I didn't have a recovery partition either.

But like I said everything was right from the beginning. Win10 removed all the old drivers (at least the entries visible in the device manager) and automatically installed the original drivers.

My advice for people in a same situation (similar scenario). If you need the optical drive just buy one and try replacing it. At least if you'll save hours or maybe days of troubleshooting. If the new one works, good. If not at least you know the problem is somewhere else (controller, mainboard, software related, etc). And if you don't need the new drive after all, in many cases you can send the drive back if you're careful not to scratch it or damage it. Make sure to explain you didn't use it, just barely tested it, and a lot of vendors will accept it back.

I need to know my optical drive is there and functions properly. I don't like external drives so much. That's why it bothered me so much and that's why I wanted this solved. It was worth it.

Good luck and Godspeed

OmerTokyay

I have been following this thread for two years. I searched for solution time to time but no luck I couldn't get it work. I am not realy willing though. I have never felt the necessity of a DVD-ROM on my pc, but it would be good to see a solution in main website since it is Acer's product. I am quite disappointed.

This DVD-ROM has no driver and it should actually work with firmware without an external intervention. Unfortunately either Microsoft or manufacturer has no any support. I wish I knew about the software part of ROM's.

BRSTURZLJR2

prototype: Your efforts to assist me are dynamic and well received. After reading all the material you shared I was soooo happy to just have someone dealing with the same problem respond. I really appreciate your time and efforts to help me. I am truly grateful. I hope no other problems plague your Aspire laptop.

P.S. Unfortunately, my problem continues to thwart my use of the DVD player... Have a great day!!

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