Lenovo Y500 crippled DVD drive

[CadetChristmas]

Hey guys!

So I'm wondering if there's any software gurus out there. Or at the very least, other Y500 owners who could maybe tell me the model of their DVD drive on their machine! If they have a DVD drive anyway....Thank you in advance! And now, my post.

The DVD drive on my Lenovo Y500 isn't working. BTW, whats with Windows 8.1?!? After finally fixing the never ending "limited internet" and "default gateway not available" with the bloody Intel 2230-N, now the DVD drive has somehow been crippled. The thing used to play just fine before on Windows 7, but after "upgrading" to 8.1....WELL. I'll try to explain.

The computer recognizes the drive as a DVD drive, it shows up in File Explorer with the DVD icon, and it reads as HL DT ST DVDRAM GU70N in the device manager. So yes, its a DVD drive. But once I go into the properties of the device thru Device Manager, things get weird. If I right click it in device manager, open properties, and then go to the Details tab, under Device Description it says that it is a CD-ROM drive. And that's what its acting as. If I put a DVD in, it will spin endlessly and fail to read it. If I put a CD in, it plays just fine.

This is effing unbelievable. I've been scouring the internet with google, bing, altavista, and I can't find anything. I've tried uninstalling the driver and letting Windows 8.1 redetect it, it just reinstalls the same driver. Speaking of the driver, it says its from 2006. Lolwut. The drive is some weird Hitachi-LG Data Storage thing and I can't find any drivers on the Lenovo website. I found something through Dell, but it didn't work when I tried to run the installer. I've tried going into the registry and deleting the Upperliimits and Lowerlimits entries, nothing. I was finding it hard to defend Windows 8.1 with all the glitches I've experienced (and with a clean install too), but this is just ridiculous. How an OS in 2014 can't properly recognize a DVD drive is beyond me.

If anyone has seen this before, advice would be awesome. Or at the very least, if you have a Y500 running 8.1 with a DVD drive, and if its the SAME dvd drive, I'd love to see how its recognizing your drive.

[CadetChristmas]

An update, for any other unfortunate souls on the internet who might have this problem!

Tried for hours, nothing worked. Booted into safe mode and the drive had dropped the DVD tags completely and showed up as a CD drive in File Explorer. Googled like mad, can't find any drivers or much mention of this device. Either the DVD laser has somehow gone bad in the last few weeks or Windows 8.1 is f*cked, I can't say, but its not worth the time to test it or replace it. I've put the 2nd 650M GPU in permanently and will be buying a $30 external DVD drive for any disc needs I might have.