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I have a Studio XPS 1645 with a picky optical drive. When I first received the laptop, I had trouble playing some DVD movies (though most worked), so I updated the drive firmware and system BIOS. After that, I had no trouble with DVD movies but, for some reason, the eject button no longer worked. On this machine, the eject button is a lit symbol above the keyboard along with other media buttons, rather than a physical button you push. Still, I was able to eject the DVDs in 'Computer', so I accepted the trade-off.
Now I've encountered further problems though. I tried to burn a data CD-R, but no matter which program I used, it would always fail with an error message shortly after beginning the process, with no actual data written. I borrowed a friend's external optical drive, hooked it up to my machine and, using the exact same programs and CD-Rs, I'm able to burn without a problem. So the issue is definitely my optical drive.
I thought maybe it was a driver, firmware, or BIOS issue, but I have the latest in all those categories according to the Dell support site. So I decided to try rolling back my earlier updates. I got out my system disks, popped in the DVD labeled 'Dell Drivers and Utilities Already Installed on your Computer' and... my computer doesn't even recognize that a disk has been inserted. Trying various data DVDs, some work fine, some aren't recognized at all, and some cause my system to hang up for a bit while the drive tries with futility to access the DVD. All the movie DVDs I've tried seem to work though, so this is a very picky drive.
My optical drive is a HL-DT-ST DVDRWBD CA10N made by Hitachi-LG Data Storage, and I'm on Windows 7 Home Premium. I'm using the A108 firmware from the Dell website, and the Microsoft driver version 6.1.7601.17514, which seems to be the latest Windows driver for optical drives even though it's from 2006. My system BIOS is A13.
I haven't found any other drivers to try. I can't find an earlier firmware, and reinstalling the A108 doesn't seem to make a difference. The Dell support website offers me both the A13 and A06 BIOS, but the WinPhlash program it uses to flash your system won't let me install either of them, since I already have the A13.
I ran a Dell Support Center PC Checkup scan on my optical drive and found several errors. It passed the DRAM, Flash ROM, Main IC, OPU, Spindle, Tray Out, CD Linear Seek, CD Random Seek, CD Funnel Seek, CD Linear Read Compare, CD Audio, and DVD Linear Seek tests. It then failed the DVD Random Seek test with the following results:
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 2127153. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 2975904. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 2960381. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Maximum errors of 3 exceeded. Canceling test. |
| Informative Message: | Re-running the test. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 119268. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 171819. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 180474. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Maximum errors of 3 exceeded. Canceling test. |
| Test Finished: | Failed |
Then it passed the DVD Funnel Seek test, but only because the second DVD it asked me to test is one that it has no trouble reading:
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 0. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 381758. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Failed to read sector 3817. Error code 1090H. |
| Error Message: | Maximum errors of 3 exceeded. Canceling test. |
| Informative Message: | Re-running the test. |
| Test Finished: | Passed |
And it then passed the DVD Linear Read Compare test with that DVD. However, it failed both the CD-R and CD-RW Read Write tests:
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Any suggestions on how to fix this? Are there other drivers and/or firmware out there I could use?
