CD drive

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Hey,

I'm having some problems with my cd drive. It won't read any cds. Is there any way of checking that it is not the drivers etc?


cheers


dan
 
Does the drive physically act normally? Open when you press buton, light flash when you insert CD etc?

If so, does the drive show in in "My Computer"/"Windows Explorer" under the "Devices with Removable Storage" section?

And if so, is the computer new? Did you just install the drive? or has it been working fine with no changes to software or hardware for a period of time previous to this occasion?

If you can answer these questions, i'm sure we can come to a conclusion in a short space of time.

Regards

Chris
 
Oh, By the way this sort of thing is not strictly "Off Topic" - it is computer related, and it is hardware therefore should belong in the "Support" or "General" Sections.

Not to worry, I'll move it there now. Just so you know why it's not in Off Topic any more!

Chris
 
Cheers,

The drive still works, i.e opens and the led flashes when a cd is inserted. It is a laptop pc (about 1 yr old). The cd drive shows in my computer but shows that there is no cd in the drive--(i've tried several cds). It has worked fine up til now. I haven't touched the drivers/software or at least haven't on purpose (not exactly an expert with anything to do with computers).

Any ideas???

or is it just busted??

Cheers

Dan
 
Intriguing.

If it shows up in "My Computer" then it should be connected internally ok.

My first thought would be that the drive is shot, but then i don't know much about Laptops.

What make is the computer?
 
CD Rom drives die, but you'll get no indication from Windows ... you could try a lens cleaner but I doubt that will 'cure' the problem.

Replace the drive will probably be your only option, you can buy external CD-RW/DVD combo's for around £50

:)
 
As Mucks said, really, my first thought was to try a CD drive cleaner (you can get 'em in Sainsburys, Maplins and other places for about six quid).

Try several different CD's in there as well.

I just bought one of those CD cleaners, as my audio system Marantz CD player was refusing to read some home made burnt CD's. It hadn't been cleaned since I bought it about 11 years ago.

After doing the clean cycle twice, when I opened the tray I noticed a lot of dust on the CD tray. It now reads all CD's OK and was obviously in severe need of a clean.
 
try booting the laptop to safemode (tap F5 on boot) see if it recognises cd's in there.

personally there's a couple of things i would try before scrapping a drive (especially being a laptop drive), IMO a lens cleaner is unlikely to work, lens cleaners generally sort probs like a cd skipping or when your getting read errors when installing software not when the drive can't read cd's at all.

try the above, let me know how you get on.

J
 
Real-mode CD-ROM drivers aren't installed in safe mode. ;)
 
what do you mean by real mode?

a cd-rom will work in safemode because windows loads a standard MS ATAPI driver. (XP)
 
Techy said:
what do you mean by real mode?

a cd-rom will work in safemode because windows loads a standard MS ATAPI driver. (XP)
Old school, before ATAPI drives, in 95/98 you won't see a CDROM drive ... if you have access to the CDROM drive in safe mode, fine ... if not, you'll need to pe-load the Real-Mode drivers.

;)
 
right ok, i was assuming he was using XP because he said the machine was purchased a year ago.

XP should always give you access to cd-rom drives in safe mode its just prev versions of windows that won't. (without any additional config)

the reason i mentioned to try this is because it's a quick way to check there are no driver probs, either with the CD-ROM driver or the IDE controller/channels drivers.

if then then works in safemode then all that requires doing is for the CD-ROM driver and IDE controller/channels drivers to be reinstalled then to reboot the machine.

;)

J
 
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