Playing MPEG files which are in secondary hard drive 1

[Maxximo1]

This is really a strange happening, I have few MPEG (mpeg1 and mpeg2) files in my harddrive, when I try to play any of them, windows media player gives me an unknown error.
Tried to copy the fies onto a cd, then inserted the cd in drive, launched windows media player and it played correctly, tried again the one residing in the hard drive no luck error still popped up.
Any help is appreciated

 

[micker377]

Did you run Scandisk on your secondary drive? I just tried to run a mpeg from my second drive and it was OK.

 

[jznightmare]

could you give us the exact error message?

 

[cdogg]

Have you tried transferring one of the trouble MPEG's to your primary hard drive and play them? If so, with what results?

Also, where did this secondary drive come from? Was it always a part of your system, or was it the primary drive of another system at one point?


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Maxximo1]

To micker377, Yes I did run both scandisk and defrag without any resutls, was still unable to play the mpeg file.

To jnightmare, the exact error believe it or not was " windows media player encountered an unknown error and cannot play this file"

To cdogg, tried to transefr to a cd-rom, transferred as a mpeg, did not burn as to play on a home dvd, once transferred to the cd-rom played correctly using windows media player, I did not try to move/copy the file to the primary hard drive, will do that and see if it works. The secondary hard drive it's a brand new Seagate 80GB, was not part of the system was added by me after puchased the pc, it works fine with all other files of any kind, just few mpeg1 and mpeg2, I can read and play any other file, like music files etc.

This is really bothering me as I consider myself a hardware and software expert, but never come across such error, in fact before transferring the file to a cd-rom even tried to download and install few codecs thinking that could be a missing decoder still to no avail.

thank you all for your answers, I am trying other things will keep you posted on the results, in the meantime appreciated any other suggestion.

 

[cdogg]

Maxximo,
First of all, the version of Windows and Media Player will probably make a difference.

Secondly, MPEG2 files are not natively supported by Windows Media Player and most other free players on the net. You need to have the MPEG2 codec installed properly, which comes with such software like PowerDVD or WinDVD.

And finally, assuming that you've tried several MPEG-1 files with no success (and able to verify that the same MEPG-1 files work on another system), I would uninstall and reinstall Media Player. Make sure you have at least version 7.1 installed, and if you have Win2K or WinXP, go ahead and grab Media Player 9.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Maxximo1]

cdogg, again thanks for the prompt response, ok, you are absolutely right, I should have been more specific about my system, it has Windows XP, Pro installed, all patches and updates downloaded and installed ( even if sometimes doing this create more problems that fixing it. lol) Windows media player version 9 installed, Power DVD 5 installed, not even Power DVD could play the file when in the hard drive yet played ok once tranferred to the cd-rom.
I did reinstall Windows media player as you suggested yet to no avail. You see if the player couldn't play the file once in the cd-rom I would tend to believe that could be media players fault since it played correctly from the cd-rom I believed rightly or wrong that media player itself was not the culprit, in fact it played the movie ok once in the cd-rom, yet reinstalled it as you suggested. The only option remaining is to tranfer all in the secondary hard drive, then reformat (low level maybe first) then copy all back and see if it fixes the problem, giving my own answer here, just to see if you agree with it, thanks again cdogg.

 

[cdogg]

Yes, that is very strange indeed. Formatting is the most extreme solution, but in the end probably the most complete as well.

However, I would probably first try introducing a new MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 file into the system and see if it has the same problem. Also don't forget to test out the primary drive (although I don't see why the problem would only affect a certain drive). I'm also under the assumption that you have full administrative permission to all areas of both drives, correct? The reason why I ask is because that's usually the main difference between a CDROM and HDD transfer in a Windows NT environment.

Good luck!



~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Maxximo1]

thanks cdogg, you are correct, I do have administartive privileges to the full system.
As far as trying to play another file, yes I have indeed, same results as you said, and yes again, tested the primary drive as someone else suggested, amazing as it may seems the stupid mpeg did not play yet the system is working 100%, I could be wrong but if anything is wrong with the primary drive, I would find it very difficult to even run Windows, yet everything run just fine, strange and amazing problem, I am sure that with all the help and suggestons received I will eventually come to terms with it once done that will post the results in here just in case someone else might experiences the same situation in the future.