Do you know how fast your CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drive is? Which formats it supports out of the box? VSO Inspector can deliver those answers to you, if you are running the Windows operating system. The inspector scans all optical drives that are connected to the PC to display detailed information about each of [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

When I first installed Windows 7 I was puzzled that my Samsung DVD drive was not displayed in Windows Explorer. Only later did I learn that this was by design. Optical drives with no media inserted do not appear by default in Windows Explorer on Windows 7. That’s fine and users can make a quick [...]

Categories: troubleshooting, Windows

I tried burning a DVD yesterday and noticed that the DVD burning software was not recognizing the DVD drive. A quick check in the Devices and Printers section of the Windows control panel showed that the DVD drive and the virtual DVD drive had yellow exclamation marks next to them. when I checked the properties [...]

Categories: troubleshooting, Windows

A missing CD DVD drive letter can – but must not – mean that there is a problem in Windows so that the drive is not recognized by the operating system. It can be by design as well at least in Windows 7 as empty CD DVD drives will not be listed under My Computer [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

We have covered virtual dvd drive software programs in the past. Software like Clone Drive, Win CD Emu or Iso Disk allow a user to create virtual DVD drives on a computer system that can mount disk image formats. Most programs that were covered in the past were restricted to a few popular disk image [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

If you have got multiple DVD drives installed on your computer system or are making use of virtual DVD drives you might have noticed that they do not come with proper names. On my system my Samsung DVD drive is simply called drive E while my first virtual drive is drive F. That leads to [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Windows will try to access the contents of a DVD that is in a DVD drive whenever the user is accessing Windows Explorer. This can become pretty annoying as the DVD drive is starting to spin up making some loud noises in the process. The question now is if there is a way to lock [...]

Categories: ask the readers

If you ever had a kid running around in a room with a computer you most likely must have noticed that the little brats seem to be fascinated by the computer lights, buttons, keyboard or mouse. They cannot stop pressing their little fingers everywhere which can lead to some undesired results like powering down a [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Since my previous favorite software to mount images on my computer Daemon Tools Lite has been banned in my country I had to check a few application to find another one that would do the job. One candidate was Virtual CloneDrive (via Elite Freeware) from SlySloft, the makers of AnyDVD which is also banned in [...]

Categories: Software, Windows