My CD/DVD drive on my laptop just stopped reading discs all of the sudden. It’s connected, because I hear it whirring and spinning, but the disc never shows up on iTunes or in My Computer. I tried doing a system restore back to a date when I knew it read/burned cds, but that did not work.
I’m using a Dell Inspiron e1705 with Windows XP.
Please tell me my disc drive isn’t shot!
Unfortunately, that’s the most likely case, IME, optical drives are usually the first thing to go wonky on a computer. Being among the few mechanical parts, they are pretty prone to wearing out.
ETA: You can try reinstalling the drivers, or reseating the drive itself, but sounds like it is hosed to me.
If you have another computer available, you can try installing it in that machine to see if it is the drive itself or something with your computer.
Oh, I guess it is worth asking: How old is the computer?
Right at two years old.
And it’s not like it gets banged around much either. It rarely moves, actually. It was in my car for a few hours a couple of weeks ago and got rather cold… could ~30 degree weather have affected the drive?
A little young, perhaps, but it’s more than reasonable that the drive could’ve given up the ghost within two years. I’ve seen both hard disk drives and optical drives take their final spin in as much time. If reseating the drive/reinstalling drivers doesn’t help, I’d recommend trying the drive in another computer (if possible). If the drive doesn’t work in another computer, then you can be pretty certain that the drive itself is borked.
Is the computer still under warranty?
ETA: Cold weather is not particularly good for the computer, but not really a death sentence. It may have contributed, but I would wager that the drive was on its way out regardless.
My computer also rarely moves, but even with kid gloves, it suffers from some mechanical wear. In my case, after two years the system fan is nearly shot.
No, it was only for one year, unfortunately. I’ll try to reseat it. Hopefully that’ll straighten it out.
Let us know how things work out for you, I hope it is not a hardware problem. However, if it is, at least it is only about 45 dollars to fix.
Just reseated the drive… the hard way, as it’s not readily removable. It didn’t help though… looks like i’ll need a new cd drive. Frick.
Before scrapping the drive, try cleaning it.
I’ve got a "Clean Dr’ cleaner disc that I pop in whenever any of my CD / DVD players or CD-ROM drives acts up. Just the other day, it fixed a slot-load drive that was thinking all discs were blank.
The first thing you should always do is use a lens cleaning cd in the drive. The same goes for a malfunctioning DVD player.
Definitely try lens cleaning if you smoke near the machine. The DVD lens is much fussier than the one for CD.