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46842
February 1st, 2010 08:00
CD/DVD Drive Does Not Work
Last week my CD/DVD drive stopped working. When I put a CD in the drive, either it immediately ejects the CD or just sits there making a continual whirring noise and doe not recognize the drive. I was instructed to uninstall and the drive and restart the computer. The computer "found" the CD/DVD drive and reinstalled it without any trouble. Unfortunately that did not solve my problem.
I have a Dell Inspiron 530, running Windows Vista Home Basic. According to my device manager the model of the disc drive is PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16A6S ATA Device.
Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
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Skybird
10.9K Posts
0
February 1st, 2010 08:00
Run the Dell Diagnostics on the drive if it is on your hard drive.
Press F12 at startup while the blue Dell shows on the screen. This
will enter the boot menu. Choose Utility Partition or Diagnostics.
Run the Custom Test on the drive and have a data CD (not music CD)
ready for the test.
darndt21
7 Posts
0
February 5th, 2010 14:00
I have an Inspiron E1505. The DVD/CDRW stopped working. In Device Manager it says: "Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)." I uninstalled the device and the driver and still had the problem. I bought a new drive and still have the same problem. I searched for the Dell Diagnostics on my hard drive and couldn't find it. Where can I get the Dell Diagnostics program you referenced? Thanks. Dan
darndt21
7 Posts
0
February 5th, 2010 16:00
It took me a moment but I realized that you were talking about hitting F12 during boot up and using the diagnostics. The device passed the diagnostics -- no error codes during the quick test. I also ran the detailed test for the DVD/CDRW drive. No error codes. But, I still get the Code 41 and the drive doesn't work. Thoughts?
Skybird
10.9K Posts
0
February 5th, 2010 21:00
darndt21,
Your drive is probably fine. The appropriate article
below should resolve the issue ...........
Try this article for Windows XP ...............
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/EN-US/
Try this article for Windows Vista ...........
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461
Yottabyte
139 Posts
0
February 5th, 2010 23:00
I see the typical hardware/driver troubleshooting along with diagnostics and tests but no mention of something so trivial, yet notorious for causing symptoms such as a working drive suddenly not working. There's a known issue with dust and laser drives. If everything is telling you the drive works fine, I would recommend either using a can of compressed air and following the directions of proper use (usually printed on can) and give your drive some short bursts of air carefully or you even try blowing into it like those old cartridge games that always seemed to have a tiny piece of dust somewhere causing them not to work. I have heard many stories of people spending hours trying to figure out what was wrong with thier roms only to realize it was just a spec of dust on the laser. If you have not ruled this out or in the beginning stages of troubleshooting an issue similar I would recommend trying this first. It could quite possibly save you a lot of time and no doubt later in the future if it happens again which is common.
darndt21
7 Posts
0
February 12th, 2010 04:00
Skybird, Thanks for the help. The automated tool provided me with the same unhelpful help that I got before -- says that the software was fine and I probably had a hardware problem. The manual process of editing the registry worked perfectly. The CD/RW DVDROM is up and working. Know anyone that wants to buy an extra TS-L462 cheap? Thanks again, Dan