C# How to tell if DVD drive tray is open?

Question

I have a DVD reading and burning app in C#. I want to be able to detect the difference between an empty drive (no disk) and an open drive.

Edit: After some more googling, I think a better problem description is "I want to access the drive tray status - open or closed"

I can use

ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_LogicalDisk WHERE DriveType= 5")

to find all the dvd drives in the system, and the properties tell me if there is a disk in the drive. Access property tells me if there is a blank disk.

But Access is null when the drive is open, and when the drive is shut and empty. And I don't see any other property that changes when the drive opens or closes.

Anyone know a way to distinguish an open drive from a closed and empty drive?

I am using Win7, but ideally the solution would work on XP and Vista also.

see also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3969435/check-cd-rom-tray-status — Ian Ringrose, Jun 14 '11 at 12:19
I'm not 100% sure if you can do that. What should it return for a slot in drive, for example? — Michael Stum, Jun 14 '11 at 17:57
I could live with it failing in that case, Michael. The drive must know if its open or closed. And you can open and shut the drive using c# - so it must be possible to access tray status. — Sugrue, Jun 15 '11 at 10:25

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 14 '11 at 13:22

5

MediaLoaded property (Win32_CDROMDrive) will tell you whether you have a disc loaded. I am bit confused what you are looking for:

disk tray open
disk tray closed - no media
disk tray closed - has media

MediaLoaded property will help in case 2 (False) and 3 (True)

answered Jun 14 '11 at 13:22

Lokeshwer

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BTW MediaLoaded is available on Win32_CDROMDrive object – Lokeshwer Jun 14 '11 at 13:24
I wish to distinguish between 1 and 2. As in I want to tell if the drive is open or if the drive is closed and empty. – Sugrue Jun 14 '11 at 13:56
TargetInstance property can be used. Once disc is ejected it will be null. If disc is loaded it will not be null – Lokeshwer Jun 16 '11 at 12:25
Hi Lokeshwer. What value will TargetInstance have if there is no disk and the drive is closed? – Sugrue Jun 16 '11 at 19:24
I understand the problem. So I am not sure if we can infer directly with WMI objects – Lokeshwer Jun 17 '11 at 05:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 14 '11 at 11:15

1

IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO may be of use to you.

answered Jun 14 '11 at 11:15

user247702

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Thanks for the reply. I'll try, once I figure out how in c#. But from reading it sounds like this param will tell me the size of a drive - I don't understand how it could tell me whether a DVD drive is open or empty? – Sugrue Jun 14 '11 at 11:40
Not sure if Stijn's solution is best, but reading the docs you could handle the error condition: If the operation fails or is pending, DeviceIoControl returns zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError. – Armbrat Jun 14 '11 at 11:47
@Sugrue I can't try it out right now, but I assume the sizes of an empty drive (0 or null) and an open drive (700MB or a different value) will be different. – user247702 Jun 14 '11 at 11:52

C# How to tell if DVD drive tray is open?

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