[Deppfan]

HI, i was wondering if you could help me.

i have an Acer Windows Vista. the first couple of days I was using it the cd-drive was workin just peachy, but now it has suddenly stopped!
o was reading around and the stuff looked pretty complicated about how to fix it....im not exactly the brighest...er watsit? presicely!

rite so, when i insert the cd it flashes 2 or 3 times and u can hear the disc spinning around and it makes a sound as if its reading it but then it will jst stop flashin and go silent. the only things soming up in my computer are the C: and D: drives. its not the right one because my dad has the same computer and it comes up as F:

if i go into device manager, then click on disk drives, it says Hitachi HTS542512K9SA00

if i then click that, i says "This device is working properly." in the device status box......which it clearly isnt!!!



i read around and other places were saying stuff like, get a new cd-rom drive.....but i hav a laptop!
i also didnt want to just press buttons in case pictures and things got deleted.

any ideas? thanks

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The first thing i would check is the warranty. If it's still under warranty i would have Acer fix the laptop.

If its past warranty i would still replace the CD drive. It is removable. It just may take some disassembly to get it out. Thats the funny thing about cdrom drives, they either work or quit entirely. The only way they partially work is when a virus or trojan is interfering with the software side of the cdrom drivers. I had to split the laptop cases the last time i needed to get the DVD-RW out of a toshiba laptop. A Real PITA but i was very careful and got it done.

I found that if the cdrom drive just plain don't work but spins up when a cd is put in, the reading eye has usually gone bad. This you cannot fix so the only option is to replace.

Deleting the cdrom drive in device manager seldom fixes the problem on these drives.

If and when you take it apart you can find the name and model of the cdrom drive,on the drive, to look for a replacement on the internet.

SRX660

[SRX660]

The first thing i would check is the warranty. If it's still under warranty i would have Acer fix the laptop.

If its past warranty i would still replace the CD drive. It is removable. It just may take some disassembly to get it out. Thats the funny thing about cdrom drives, they either work or quit entirely. The only way they partially work is when a virus or trojan is interfering with the software side of the cdrom drivers. I had to split the laptop cases the last time i needed to get the DVD-RW out of a toshiba laptop. A Real PITA but i was very careful and got it done.

I found that if the cdrom drive just plain don't work but spins up when a cd is put in, the reading eye has usually gone bad. This you cannot fix so the only option is to replace.

Deleting the cdrom drive in device manager seldom fixes the problem on these drives.

If and when you take it apart you can find the name and model of the cdrom drive,on the drive, to look for a replacement on the internet.

SRX660

[wannabe1]

Hello Deppfan...

The drive you see listed as HTS542512K9SA00 is your hard drive. In Device Manager, the optical drive should be listed under DVD/CD-ROM drives.

There could be a couple reasons the drive does not show up in the Computer window. One is as SRX660 suggested...the drive has failed. Another possible cause would be that Upper or Lower filters have been set on the drive.

Click the Start orb, then type run in the "Search" field, and click on the "Run" application at the top of the search results...this will open the run command window. Type regedit and click "Ok"...Registry Editor will open.

In the registry editor's left pane, expand (click +) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, then Class, and click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

In the right pane, are UpperFilters and/or LowerFilters listed?

wannabe1

[Deppfan]

only Upper Filters are listed.

what should i do now?

[wannabe1]

In the left pane, right click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and choose "Export". Name this file oldfilters and save it to your desktop.
In the right pane, right click on UpperFilters and choose "Delete"...accept the change.

Close Registry Editor and reboot.

After the restart, is the drive listed in Computer? If it's listed, does it work correctly?

[Deppfan]

umm...no, its jst doing the same thing...

[Broni]

Try this:
Go to Device Manager, click a "+" sign next to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
You'll see two items:
- ATA Channel0 (or Primary Channel)
- ATA Channel1 (or Secondary Channel)
Right click on each of them, and click Uninstal. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[Deppfan]

still not working....

i also think i should point out that when i am doing other things on the computer and there is no disc inserted, the drive decides it wants to finally read a disc and you can hear it trying to read it...although there is no disc.

Edited by Deppfan, 17 September 2008 - 01:04 PM.

[Broni]

As SRX660 said, it looks like new drive is needed.

[Deppfan]

see, how i fiddled around with the things you guys told me to, is the laptop still under warranty for getting the drive fixed?

[SRX660]

If you are still under warrantee, what you have done so far should not void it. Warrantee's are for hardware failures like you have, not software changes.

Just don't let them bully you into believing they do not have to fix it. I have gone round and round with some company's until they finally gave up and acknowledged they had to fix the computer.Only because i kept insisting and would not give up(Asus motherboards comes to mind here).

SRX660