DVD drive not working on xps m1330

by the way i found in oneof the posts that deleting the uper andlower filters from the registery might cure the problem but when i went to the registry i could not find the filters!! could this be the cause ? and how to get them?

I have the exact same prpoblem- registers did not help. I think it's just bum hardware. This is my second unit.

hi guys, I feel the exact same problem face by you. this drive namely  tsstcorp dvd+-rw ts-l632h is the worst available dvd rwriter supplied by the dell.

This writer has many compatibility problems & can access the limited no of media available in the market.

lets tried out the firmware upgrade of the drive & see the result, might solve the some of your promlems.

the dell engineer came to my house yesterday and confirmed that it is a hardware problem and the drive was dead...replaced it with a new drive in 10 minutes...it is working fine now but i contacted dell to extend the warranty for another 3 years

I have same drive in my 1330. Very rarely use it,however have noticed it becoming increasingly unreliable in the past few months (disappearing from device  manager, saying no disc loaded etc). Today it stopped reading discs all together. Warranty is out so ripped the machine apart to have a look. Not impressed with what I found; the data/power cable that connects the drive to the mainboard has been placed in such a way that it doubles back on itself. There is a small, hard bit of board that has been added to the end that connects to the drive. The edge of this board has chafed against the double backed cable and written off half of the circuit tracks on it! Managed to find a replacement cable on Ebay for a tenner, hopefully this will fix it. **OC9 Dell XPS m1330 50.4C311.001 Optical Drive Connector** is the part number. I think when I install the new cable I will add some form of protection (thin foam) to prevent this from happening again.

Yep- I think I need a new drive as well- anybody know the part number or where I can order one? I tried Dell Parts- but didn't see anything.

Search on Ebay for "m1330 dvd drive". They're pretty expensive though (£100), especially when you factor in that your replacement could possibly fail another year from now!

Hey dude!

I have the same issue with my dell xps m1330.The same problems im facing with my laptop and even i have done all the diagnosis and nothing found wrong. I have warranty with my laptop and to fix the problem, Dell has replaced my Matshita CD/DVD drive for 3 times and the problem remained as it was before.I ve been runnig after this to fix the problem but didnt get any solution..Even the dell technical support people failed to fix it.

                                                                                                                                                     kashyap

That sounds the same as my problem, maybe you need a new drive connector cable? Still waiting for it to arrive by the way.

Hi guys, just to follow up, the cable finally arrived. I replaced the old one and my drive is now working once again! I added some protective foam this time to prevent the chafing happening again. So to sum up, it might not always be the drive that is at fault, check the cable first. Hope this helps.

I had the same problem & solved it with this, from BlackRussian on NotebookReview.com:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=197770

NOTE: After removing these registry keys and rebooting, it may be necessary to reinstall any CD or DVD recording applications.

1) Close all open programs

2) Click on Start, Run, and type REGEDIT and press Enter

3) Click on the plus signs (+) next to the following folders

* HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
* SYSTEM
* CurrentControlSet
* Control
* Class
* {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4) This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.

* UpperFilters
* LowerFilters
* UpperFilters.bak
* LowerFilters.bak

5) If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete

6) After deleting the keys, close the Registry Editor

7) Reboot your computer

8) Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned. You may also want to open Device Manager and verify that the yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone.

I have had the same problem and I've tried everything suggested in this thread and more.  I've had the drive replaced four times in the few years I've owned the laptop.  Dell wants to reinstall my OS.

This laptop is really frustrating me.  Its the fifth dell laptop I've had in the past ten years and this one has had incredible numbers of hardware problems.  Aside from the dvd drive, the motherboard has gone bad and they've replaced the screen (I don't know why they chose to do that).  I've never had problems like this with any of my previous laptops.

This solved the issue for me. Had DVD replaced a year ago when it stopped working. It just happened again. Deleting the registry keys brought the drive back to live.

This fixed it for me