CD/DVD Drives won't read (but can write...)

Question

A month or so ago I seem to have lost the ability to read from my CD-ROM and DVD+RW drives.  I don't remember installing anything special and no hardware has been upgraded in a long time.  The system has been running solid for close to a year.  Both drives spin up when I insert a disc and I even see the mouse-icon change to show that a disc is being inserted.  However, when I try to access the disc with My Computer it says 'no disc inserted' (CD-ROM) or shows me an empty folder (DVD+RW). Here is what I've tried so far: Tried burning DVD - works fine but the system won't read the DVD after I wrote it even though it works fine on other computers and my DVD player Boot in Safe Mode - no luck reading either drive Boot Windows with CDs already in the drive - this allows me to read those drives just fine until I remove them, after that I'm back to not reading anything again I ran Norton Antivirus and Ad-Aware and couldn't find any malware I tried removing the drives from Device Manager to force Windows to reinstall the drivers - no change I installed WindowsXP SP2 hoping it would reset something - no luck I've looked all over the Internet for weeks and found nothing to fix my problem System Specs: Dell Dimension 4600 HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-848113 NEC DVD+RW ND-1100A Windows XP w/SP2 It is quite a pain to have to reboot just to read a CD.  Can anyone help? Thanks, Dan

Predator · Answer

Hi Dan,We have been seeing some strange issues here lately, almost looks like a possible Windows update prior to SP2 but very hard to pin down. Click on the CD/RW link in my post and scroll to Section 11, article 1, this will Restore the Set-up Defaults in the BIOS, also verify that the Secondary IDE channel is set on 'Auto'.Then try Section 20, article 3; Section 6-3, article 26 has some info on 'Insert Disc' from a couple of our Members.I am still digging around...Best Regards God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell thedifference. CD/RW Link

Predator · Answer

Hi Dan,As for the set-up, Dell ships their systems using the Cable Select Feature, they set the jumper on CS and let location on the Cable determine Master / Slave, 'end' connection being Master. We tend to see conflicts when someone mixes them on the same cable, one CS and the other MA or SL. Currently about the only thing you have not tried is the Upper & Lower Filters. I have Dell`s article on this in Section 12, article 10. Do you have anyway to test the drives in another system to see if it might be a hardware issue?Best Regards God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell thedifference. CD/RW Link

dcrowell · Answer

Thanks for the response, but still no luck after trying all of the suggestions. I guess I didn't specify my setup earlier. I've got 2 hard drives on the primary channel with the CD and DVD drives on the secondary IDE. I don't remember how I have the master/slave setup so I might have to open the box up. Anything I should look for while I have it open?

Thanks again.

dcrowell · Answer

Still haven't gotten time to pull the case open to mess with the cables. I really wouldn't think this would be a hardware problem though since the drives to work correctly if I boot the machine with the CDs inserted. Also, the DVD writer works just fine so I know that drive isn't completely dead.

dcrowell · Answer

I finally got the machine opened and verified that all of the jumpers are set correctly.  I also reseated the cables just to be sure.  No change unfortunately...   Thanks for the help.

Storage, Drives & Media

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