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Driver corrupt, DVD drive won't load in Vista Home Premium 32-bit
A used Dell Insprion 531 I just purchased has a DVD r/w with driver issues. ("Windows cannot load driver. May be corrupt") I can't use the factory Dell CD with drivers as the CD drive doesn't work. I tried to copy the files to a USB drive, but the CD program wouldn't run and I'm not sure what folder/file is the correct one out of the many on the CD.
I tried deleting the drive, then unplugging it, restarting without the drive hooked up, shuttind down, then reattaching the cabling and booting up again - thinking that I could go through the add hardware wizard and install a new driver from online, but now I can't get the DVD drive to show up in Vista. Any suggestions to get this dvd R/W up again? Thanks
Drive is TSST TS-H653B HH SATA 16X DVD+/-RW
The_Namek
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March 3rd, 2009 17:00
adams9400,
Does the DVD burner show up in the BIOS after you reseated the cables?
The_Namek
2.8K Posts
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March 3rd, 2009 19:00
OK, since the drive isn't recognized in BIOS it's not going to be seen in Windows. When you switched SATA cables with the hard drive did you plug the hard drive into the SATA controller the DVD burner was originally plugged into and vice versa? If you did and the system was still able to boot into the OS then we know that SATA cable & the controller are both OK.
adams9400
7 Posts
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March 3rd, 2009 19:00
Thanks for your reply. No, the DVD burner does not show up in BIOS. I did update the BIOS, too. Here is a list of the things I've tried so far: 1) The unit is getting power as I can open the tray. And I sucessfully switched the SATA cables with the hard drive, just to make sure that wasn't the issue. 2) I unistalled the drive in Device Manager, disconnected the link & power, rebooted, then shut down, reconnected everything, and tried to use the add hardward wizard to update the driver; 3) I tried a system restore, which just deleted all the things I'd done since I received the unit. Didn't fix the problem. 4) I searched this forum and found a CD/DVD overview link here: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19240923.aspx On this page, there was a specific link How to Fix a Code 39 Error in Vista. I tried the regedit suggestions regarding Upper and Lower filters but still no luck. I also tried the regedit trick I found on another page where you delete the "no drive" text. The drive still doesn't come up.
The gent I bought the system from swears that the DVD burner was working when he shipped it. But I can't figure out where to go from here. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am trying to avoid the $49 tech call to Dell, and maybe learn something to boot! Appreciate you taking the time to think about my problem.
adams9400
7 Posts
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March 3rd, 2009 19:00
When I switched the cables, I was careful to put the HDD back into the same slot it was originally in, same with the DVD burner. Based on your comment, I guess we know the cable is OK, but not the SATA controller.
The_Namek
2.8K Posts
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March 3rd, 2009 20:00
There's a good chance of that. Just to be sure I'd disconnect the DVD burner's SATA cable from the motherboard & plug the HDD's SATA cable into that controller then see if the system will still boot up normally. If it won't and you get a no boot device detected (or similar error) then that controller is probably shot.
adams9400
7 Posts
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March 6th, 2009 17:00
Discovered that the SATA controller for ports 2 & 3 was not activated in BIOS. Once that was done, all is well. Thank god it wasn't the motherboard or controllers! Thanks for your feedback, Namek!
All's well that end's well!:emotion-10:
The_Namek
2.8K Posts
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March 6th, 2009 22:00
OK, that actually makes sense. I was under the impression the DVD burner was initially plugged into SATA controller 1 and the HDD into SATA 0. If no other SATA drives were in the system when it shipped then Dell would've had the unused controllers disabled in BIOS.
Glad that's all it was! :emotion-1: