Weird fix for optical drive problem

[trents]

I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

1. Tried to do a clean install of Windows 10 1903 on 9 year old HP laptop a couple of days ago from a DVD using the laptop's built-in optical drive. The installation would proceed to the point where you have opportunity to wipe the existing partitions before continuing with the installation. But then I would get an error message saying the Windows installer could not find a needed media driver and asked me to connect the storage device containing the driver. Got to this point on several tries but could not proceed beyond. What was interesting was that the drive was functional to boot from the Windows 10 DVD installer but dropped out at a certain point.

2. I then plugged in my USB optical drive and was able to install Windows without a problem, though I started with an earlier version and went through the update process to get to 1903. In hindsight, I wish I had tried 19003 first to see if it would work in the external optical drive.

3. However, once in place Windows still did not see the built-in optical drive. I could see the drive using Power Shell and the diskpart "list" command but it was not visible, either in the Windows Disk Utility or in File Explorer. It wasn't visible with or without an optical disk inserted into the caddy. I tried inserting the Windows 10 1903 installer DVD, a DVD movie, and an audio CD. It did not recognize any of those.

4. Then I inserted a Linux Live DVD into the built-in optical drive while still in the Windows 10 desktop. Bingo! The drive read it right away. To myself I thought, well that confirms that it was a driver issue in Windows 10 1903.

5. But now comes the puzzling part. After I removed the Linux Live DVD, I found that every other kind of optical disk (Windows 10 installer, movie DVD, bland DVD, audio CD) would now work!

How did inserting the Linux Live installer work to fix the issue? Any ideas?

 

[Mr.Scott]

You loaded a Linux Live DVD while still in windows. The CD had drivers for the optical. Windows loaded the drivers off the cd.
By what you're telling, W10 plainly does not contain any optical drivers. Not even a basic M$ one. Not surprised, as most systems don't even have optical drives anymore.

 

[bmwbaxter]

Is it possible that windows 10 was downloading the driver for it in the background? Just happened to be fine down to weird timing?

 

[Bill_Bright]

I think Mr.Scott nailed it with his comment about the Linux DVD containing the necessary drivers. That's a guess on my part but to me, it makes sense. However, I will say official MS W10 Pro installer disks (like this) do indeed support DVDs. So where did that Windows 10 1903 installer DVD come from? Did you create it from an ISO image using that notebook?

I suspect if this had been a 9 year old "PC" consisting of standard ATX compliant hardware (that is, not a "HP proprietary" notebook) it would have worked fine with the first installer DVD.

The problem is common enough that HP has a KB article about it: https://support.hp.com/hk-en/document/c03370738.

 

[trents]

Bill, I created the installer from an ISO that I downloaded from Microsoft's website. I have used that same disk to install 1903 on several other machines successfully.

bmwbaxter, I don't think Windows was loading the driver in the background as before I inserted the Linux live disk I had worked with this issue for hours so I think that would have already happened. Besides, I repeatedly asked Windows to check for updated drivers from Device Manager (IIR correctly, it was listed there) and it was telling me the best driver was already installed.

Mr. Scott and B_B, how could the Linux supply the driver the device needed if the device isn't able to read optical disks? No other optical disks were able to be read. Perhaps there was something different about the formatting or file system of the Linux Live disk that allowed the drive to read it as opposed to other disks. Given the age of the optical drive, I also wondered if it was a firmware issue but was unable to find a firmware update except on some sleezy firmware repository website that my security software blocked.

By the way, the disk model ID is: HP DVDWBD TS-LB23L. It's a Bluray/DVD combo drive.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Bill, I created the installer from an ISO that I downloaded from Microsoft's website. I have used that same disk to install 1903 on several other machines successfully.

Hmm, strange indeed. I still suspect it has something to do with HP and their proprietary settings and/or hardware - but I may be wrong.

At any rate, I am glad you were able to sort it out with your external drive.