Optical Drives malfunction

This is annoying, I know it is not my Optical Drives per-sei, but for some unknown reason, my computer isn't recognizing my Opticals anymore, I go to turn on a game, and it says that there's no disk, yet clearly there is a disk, why is it not being picked up? Is it possible that my powersupply is the problem and that power is being rediverted? I have no idea what's going on, and I don't want to have to restart every time just to play a game.

Shattered OUT...

No one has a solution? This makes me sad .

Shattered OUT...

couple things that you can do.

1. Make sure the disk is not dirty. If it is, clean it. There is a proper method for doing this. Using a soft, lintless cloth wipe outward from center of disk. go around the entire disk.

2. Make sure the disk is not cracked or scratched. if it is cracked or scratched nothing you can do other than replacement. To see if it is scratched hold it up to a light source, and look "through" it. You are trying to see if the mylar surface is damaged.

3. Possibly the lens on the laser is dirty. There are optical drive lens cleaners out there. Such as one from Memorex. Is is a disk with very fine brushes on it surface, which gently brush the lens surface.

And NO, it DOES NOT SEEM to be the power supply , I would suspect the disk itself, or as I mentioned above, the lens on the laser.

just my 2 cents.

[edit on 7/11/2006 by Mechanic 32]

[edit on 7/11/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Thanks for the suggestions, but like all my other discs, I keep these as good as possible, not a single scratch, not cracked or anything, and I doubt it's the laser lens, I don't think you understand my problem, my problem isn't that the optical drives don't read, it's that my computer isn't even recognizing them, I've went into My Computer, it's not even an option, they aren't being recognized by the OS, maybe it's a process I accidently ended or something?

Is there a process for that?

Shattered OUT...

Okay, that's different altogether. Do you mean that the icon for your optical drive is not showing up either??

Have you made any recent Hardware changes??

Have you noticed any other problems with your computer (i.e., taking way to long to boot up, or sudden restarts for no reason) ???

One thing you can do. Check and see if the BIOS recognizes the optical drive.

To access the BIOS differs on many computers. On some, you have to press 'F1' or 'F2' , or 'DEL' , or some other key while you computer is booting.

If you know how to access the Bios on your computer, that would help.

[edit on 7/11/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Originally posted by Mechanic 32
Okay, that's different altogether. Do you mean that the icon for your optical drive is not showing up either??

Have you made any recent Hardware changes??

Have you noticed any other problems with your computer (i.e., taking way to long to boot up, or sudden restarts for no reason) ???

Well taking too long to boot up is something that happens to so frequently on my comp, I took it as the norm, random restarts, nah, haven't seen those yet.

I can't made any recent hardware changes, the only change was the Power Supply I installed back in december, but... that was a long time ago.

Shattered OUT...

Well, that is a different situation altogether.

But I still would try to see if the BIOS detects the drive.

I'm thinking it could be a driver issue, and that's why Windows does'nt see it.

And this power supply, tell me a little about it. The wattage rating, manufacturer, etc.

The tray goes in and out, right? So it's not the power. Maybe it's the data cable. Check cables and connections to the drive. And check the BIOS as well.

If BIOS can see the drive check if Windows device manager can see it as well

[edit on 2006/7/11 by Hellmutt]

Question, SS.

Have you listened to or played any Sony/BMG audio CDs?

Just a shot in the dark, but If you have, your PC may have had the Sony rootkit unknowingly installed. If it was improperly Uninstalled, and without the necessary patch/fix, the result would be similar to what your are experiencing, loss of function for the drive.

I'll leave it at that for now .. just a shot in the dark, but ... it would seem odd that an IDE cable would simply stop "working" with no replacement, adjustment or repositioning. ?

? thoughts ?

1.Go to Control panel
2. Click System Properties
3. Click Hardware
3. Click Device Manager
4. From the tree open DVD/CD-ROM Drives

Here you will see your drives, one at a time right click a drive and choose from the menu, Update Drivers, Disable, Un install, Scan for hardware changes or Properties,
From here you can see what is right or wrong,
Hope this helps you, let us know

Thank you Sauron!!! YES!!! I clicked on the first drive in "disk drivers" and now my disk is recognized, going to do the same for the next couple of ones see if I can't get my other optical noticed.

Shattered OUT...

I was going to suggest that next. Device Manager.

Let us know how everything comes out.

Scratch that last one, uhhh, errm, yeah I opened it to test it and put it back in, it became unrecognizable again .

I don't know what to do now.

Shattered OUT...

So it seems that somehow the driver is being replaced??

Anyone got any clues??

This is truly puzzling...

At least you know it's not a hardware problem.

Now to figure out how to retain the drivers.

Have you recently installed any new programs??

Might it be possible to use System Restore, to restore to a previous time when the drivers were working???



[edit on 7/11/2006 by Mechanic 32]

I have no idea .

Shattered OUT...

Well your drives are there, I would suggest reinstalling the drivers, or updating them.
Are you running any programs such as Daemon tools etc

Hi Shattered

I gotta give these guys and gals credit. They are pretty sharp!

I ran into this a time or two unfortunatly. Taking into consideration the items that you have eliminated, the most common cause of your CD problem is CD burning software. For example; Easy CD Creator, and Roxioare not very compatible with Windows XP and sometimes cause these symptoms. If you have recently installed burning software, this is likely the cause.

There are several repair techniques that I have seen, and I dont know what type of pc you have, but HP has a pretty good troubleshooting page to start with.

The technique that I know fixes it is not really for beginners since it deletes all your system hardware drivers. When you restart XP automatically starts finding the "new" hardware, but inevitably there are some that it cant find.

These "hard ones" are generally the network card, (which you have to have on hand to be able to get online to look for the rest of the darn drivers) :bnghd: and video card. So I will leave you with the above websites for now, but you may learn enough from them to find the fix for your pc.

Best of Luck


[edit on 7/12/06 by makeitso]