[ams570]

Hello--

I have a Gateway Laptop (4 years old). About a month ago the CD burner stopped working and I can no longer play DVDs that I used to be able to play. I can, however, import CDs to my hard drive. I use iTunes to burn/import CDs and either Realplayer or the InterDVD program can came with the Gateway to play DVDs.

Going through the device manager, I deleted the CD/DVD drivers and restarted my computer. That did not seem to solve the problem.

Any advice?

I am pretty clueless.

Thanks--

Ann

ams570

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Hi there! When you deleted it from your device manager, upon reboot you should have got the whole "Found New Hardware Wizard" thing, did you install the latest drivers? If you didn't, try doing this. If you did, it sounds like the drive is dying and you should grab another one. If it's difficult to find one for your laptop, you might check out grabbing an external one.

[Troy]

Hi there! When you deleted it from your device manager, upon reboot you should have got the whole "Found New Hardware Wizard" thing, did you install the latest drivers? If you didn't, try doing this. If you did, it sounds like the drive is dying and you should grab another one. If it's difficult to find one for your laptop, you might check out grabbing an external one.

[pip22]

Are you sure it's not a problem with the DVD-player software rather than the drive itself? If your system can read the contents of a DVD-movie disc (ie the files that are on it) with no problem, it's very likely a software issue. What error messages if any do you get when you insert a DVD-movie to play it? If no error messages it may simply mean that your system is not set up to play DVDs automatically.

Put a DVD-movie in the drive first, then start the DVD player software manually and it should detect the disc and begin to play it.

[ams570]

I have tried to insert a DVD and then open both Realplayer and InterDVD. No luck. I have also gone to My Computer to see if the computer has detected a DVD. It does not detect the DVD.

For the CD, the drive does detect the CD and is able to import songs to my hard drive (iTunes). However, it cannot burn those songs to a CD-R.

When I unistalled the drivers and rebooted, I did get that message "New Hardware found".

I guess that I am clinging to the hope that because the drive partially works (importing CDs) there is something wrong without having to replace the drive.

[Troy]

Well it might be true, but optical drives usually die within a couple of years, so four years seems good value in this instance. From what I remember, DVD's and CD's are read by different lasers, so if the DVD laser has gone kaput, along with the cd burning facility, then that's why it only plays cd's. I could be wrong, but it's pretty common, and that's why they are so cheap. Here's a link for a desktop one that's less than $30.

And this link takes you to an external example like I was mentioning earlier.

[ams570]

Thanks--

Would you recommend that external drive for my laptop? I guess that I want a decent one at a really good price.

It would just hook up to my computer via USB, right?

Also, does it matter that my USB is 1.1 and not 2.0?

Thanks--

Ann

[Troy]

The reason I am recommending an external one is that you will be able to use it on your next laptop (future-proofing), and the fact that I couldn't find a replacement internal one as well... They probably are expensive and from the manufacturer. Your USB should be 2.0, but it shouldn't matter as long as you make sure the external you are looking for is "backwards compatible", meaning it will work at the slower 1.1 USB speeds...

Although you might be able to find one that hooks up via Firewire, but your laptop might not have this connectivity option. The external I mentioned above is a DVD Burner, a step up from what you currently have. (also future-proofing)!

[ams570]

Thanks for all the help-

Is the DVD/CD drive that you are recommending "backwards compatible"?

Ann

[Troy]

Okay, just researching at Wikipedia shows me that USB 2.0 was released in 2000, so your computer should have USB 2.0 I think you might need to enquire in the XP forum about how to enable it on your computer. I think if you have SP2 (which you SHOULD if you don't) that it works automatically, but I'm not too sure about the specs of your computer.

It also says this:

Equipment conforming with any version of the standard will also work with devices designed to any previous specification (known as: backward compatibility)

Which I take it as meaning that if you bought the drive I used as an example, it should work.