[Minx]

I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FX802 laptop fitted with a Matshita UJDA730 DVD/CDRW (approx 3/4 years old). My CD burner used to work a treat but now won't recognise any blank media's except one brand. It also won't read bought CD's or DVDs any longer. I wondered if it was a driver issue? And have searched everywhere to no avail for an available driver on the net.

Can anyone help with this most annoying problem? As I burn an awful lot of CDs and the only media it recognises are old and hard to get hold of stock...

I have heard about firmware? But I believe this comes with risks, and i'm not sure if and how to go about it.

Many Thanks

Minx

Edited by Minx, 23 September 2005 - 11:58 AM.

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anyone?

[Minx]

anyone?

[Samm]

Hi there
Apologies for the delay in replying. Have you tried cleaning the laser on the optical drive? This may be all thats wrong with it. On the other hand, if you have been using the drive an awful lot, its also possible it may simply be worn out. It seems particularly strange that it won't read shop bought CDs either.

If you want to eliminate it being a driver issue, one way of doing this would be to test it using a generic driver. If you download the 'bootdisk essentials' disk or the win98se boot disk from here to create a bootable floppy :
http://freepctech.co.../files010.shtml

If neither of the above two suggestions check out, then go to Sonys website & search for any firmware updates for the drive. Updating the firmware isn't particularly risky & if all else has failed, then you don't have much to lose anyway.

Boot the laptop from this floppy, insert a shop bought CDROM and see if the system can read the CD from the command prompt.

[Minx]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

I shall try what you suggested, although wouldnt know how to clean the laser

I found Sonys website to be very vague, but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Thanks for the help.

[Samm]

You can buy a CD laser lens cleaner - this is a CD with a few soft bristles on it which cleans the lens. They're not expensive but try & get a reasonably good one, such as a well known brand, just to be on the safe side.

[Minx]

Thanks I tried that. My drive wouldn't even read the CD.

[Minx]

Anyone have any other ideas?

I have drawn a blank finding firmware. I have tried cleaning the Laser with Meths (as advised) that hasn't worked.

If I can salvage my drive rather than the hassle of finding and getting a new one fitted would be a be a huge help.

[Samm]

I'm assuming this is an internal drive as opposed to an external one, right?
If it is external though, let me know what type of interface it is (e.g USB or pcmcia)

I think the next step in this case is to eliminate any possibility of this being a driver issue. You should have the option in the bios to change the boot order to start with CDROM, followed by the hard disk and/or floppy drive.

If you have a bootable CDROM (e.g a windows install CD or similar), then set the bios's boot priority to start with CDROM, insert the bootable CD, save changes to the bios & exit. On reboot the system should boot from the CD (look out for a message after the reboot asking you to press the space bar in order to boot from CD). If the system does boot from the CD, just exit out of the windows setup screen (if its a windows install CD), eject the CD & reboot. This will at least tell you whether the problem is software related or not.

[Minx]

Sorry for the delay in responding...

Yes it's an internal drive. Will try as you suggested, although as it's not reading any CDs not even a cleaning CD, im not holding my breath.

Will post back when i've tried.

Many Thanks