[Saikuba]

As of today, my computer has seemingly stopped communicating with my DVD ROM drive (I don't know precisely when it stopped working because the last time I tried was last week, when it worked.) This is on my Windows Vista Dell Inspiron laptop which I've had for about three years, and it hasn't given me problems before now. The drive is listed in the computer screen, but it will not recognize discs put into it and the software eject will not work. The drive itself seems to work fine in terms of hardware. It opens and closes, the lights come on, and when I put a CD in it spins up like normal. However, this does not register on the computer.

I've spent a lot of time looking around and so have already tried several things. I have tried using system restore back to times when the DVD ROM worked. I have tried following the instructions on this page. I did have a LowerFilters registry entry which I deleted, though no UpperFilters entry. After restarting my computer, the DVD ROM still didn't work.

The next thing I tried was uninstalling my drivers and having them automatically reinstall. And here's where it gets weird. Device manager lists my DVD drive as "SU3800T YQQ140W SCSI CdRom Device." The manufacturer is listed as "(Standard CD-ROM Drives), the driver is listed as provided by "Microsoft" with signer "microsoft windows" (written in lowercase.) The version given is 6.0.6000.16386. Now, being as no such DVD-ROM exists, I have to think that the driver got pretty scrambled or something.

I tried uninstalling the driver, but all that happened is that Windows reinstalled the same driver, and the DVD-ROM still doesn't recognize discs. I'm out of ideas at this point, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I did some poking around in the registry, and found that my DVD-ROM is actually a Sony CDRWDVD CRX880A. There are a few places where it is referred to this, and a nearby entry refers to the "SU3800T YQQ140W." I tried updating the firmware for that drive using the updater from Dell's site, but it does not recognize my drive as a Sony CRX880A.

Edited by Saikuba, 05 February 2010 - 01:01 AM.

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First of all, optical drives don't need any extra drivers.
Secondly, the drive laser may be simply shot.

If none of these help, most likely, you need a new drive.
1. Uninstall the drive through Device Manager.
Restart computer. The drive will be automatically reinstalled.
or...
2. Download, and run Restore Missing CD Drive patch
Double click on cdgone.zip to unzip it.
Right click on cdgone.reg, click Merge.
Accept registry merge.
Restart computer.
or...
3. 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 Uninstall. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[Broni]

First of all, optical drives don't need any extra drivers.
Secondly, the drive laser may be simply shot.

If none of these help, most likely, you need a new drive.
1. Uninstall the drive through Device Manager.
Restart computer. The drive will be automatically reinstalled.
or...
2. Download, and run Restore Missing CD Drive patch
Double click on cdgone.zip to unzip it.
Right click on cdgone.reg, click Merge.
Accept registry merge.
Restart computer.
or...
3. 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 Uninstall. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[Saikuba]

None of these fixes worked.

The thing that really bugs me though, is there any reason that the device name for the drive would change like it has (to SU3800T YQQ140W SCSI CdRom Device) other than a virus (which I am going to scan for after this post)? And in any case, is there any way to change the device name back to what it was previously (I don't know if that would fix anything, but at the very least I can see that it's something wrong that involves the drive, so I'd like to try and fix it before getting an external drive or something like that.)

EDIT: Ran a full scan, nothing found.

On another note, I tried booting in safe mode to see if I could narrow anything that way. The only thing that I noticed is that the computer screen lists my drive as "CD Drive" in Safe mode and "DVD Drive" in normal bootup. Everything else is the same though, and it doesn't work in either bootup.

Edited by Saikuba, 05 February 2010 - 06:01 PM.

[Saikuba]

I've been thinking. A big problem seems to be that my drive is incorrectly labeled, so that programs that look for it think that it's a different type of DVD drive. Is there a safe way to go to the directory to either change references to the nonexistant "SU3800T YQQ140W SCSI CdRom Device" back to what they should be, or at least delete them so that when windows tries to reinstall things it doesn't get this garbage back again?

[Broni]

The manufacturer is listed as "(Standard CD-ROM Drives)

I have very same thing listed, so I think it's just generic Vista description.
However under Device type mine says: DVD/CD-ROM drives

Go to Details tab, select Device Instance Path from drop-down menu and post back what it says.

[Saikuba]

The value there is:

SCSI\CDROM&VEN_SU3800T&PROD_YQQ140W&REV_1.01\5&36E5972&1&000000

[Broni]

Yeah, if you go here: http://www.pcidatabase.com/ nothing comes up for SU3800T as vendor ID, or YQQ140W as product ID.
Even Google doesn't bring anything.

I'm out of ideas here, short of declaring the drive dead.

[Saikuba]

The drive's actually a Sony CRX880A DVD/CDRW Slim. There are still places in my registry that refer to this drive. However, somehow the thing got scrambled into a drive that doesn't exist.

I'm pretty unhopeful at this point too, but at least the drive isn't really essential on this laptop, so I can see if I get any more ideas before picking up an external drive or something.

[Saikuba]

Okay, one last question regarding this. I've pretty much accepted that my current drive is dead. What I'm wondering now, is does anyone have any idea of how likely it is that the problem may affect a new drive? It's a laptop and the drive is built in, so I can't test the drive from my other computer to see if that works (I would be buying an external drive.)

I'm not sure what caused this. It feels like malware or a virus to me, but I've done several thorough searches for both, and come up empty, and I've not had any bizzare behavior anywhere else (except for a run-in with that annoying "Vista Anti Virus" malware a few months ago, but I got rid of that.)

[Broni]

What I'm wondering now, is does anyone have any idea of how likely it is that the problem may affect a new drive?

I don't think, there is a way to answer your question.

[Saikuba]

An update: just now when I turned on my laptop it automatically reinstalled the correct drivers. The drive works fine now.

I bumped the laptop while transporting it between now and the last time that it was on, so the only thing that I can figure is that maybe there was a connection problem and the most recent bump got everything back into place. Still don't know why the drive was being listed as some nonexistent nonsense drive, or where windows was getting the drivers for that nonsense drive for that matter (since it reinstalled the same ones multiple times), but the problems seems to be solved for the moment.

[Broni]

Good news

[Saikuba]

...and now I'm back in the old situation except that sometimes while booting I get a "a device in the system modular bay cannot be identified" error when booting up. Oh well. At least that confirms that it's probably a connection issue, but since I can't see a way to remove the drive without destroying the case, and even if I could I don't see how I would be able to reconnect anything, that's about the same as a dead drive.