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General discussion

cd/dvd drive won't read discs

Dec 17, 2010 12:55PM PST

I have a Compaq Presario SR1110NX running Windows XP. The CD/DVD drive is a HL-DT-ST RW/DVD, GCC-4481B. The drive won't read discs, but the diagnostic says the drive is ok, and the driver is up to date. A diagnostic error message indicated a corrupted block.
I assume this is a bad registry or the software running the drive. Short of reinstalling the whole operating system, is there any simpler fix?
Joe Sortais

Discussion is locked

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Remember that
Dec 17, 2010 1:29PM PST

Any test of the drive's interface will show an old drive is good. Nothing new there. You didn't tell if this is the old CODE 39 XP issue. If not, I'd clean the CD/DVD lens and then if it still fails, try a new drive. Figure 2 or a few years per drive.
Bob

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cd/dvd drive won't read discs
Dec 18, 2010 7:39AM PST

Thanks for your help. The event viewer indicates an event 7, which is described as "device has a bad block" "data missing or corrupted".
I have also run microsoft's cd "fixit" program and also now the cd/dvd cleaner. Any other ideas?
Thanks
Joe Sortais

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That's interesting
Dec 18, 2010 7:58AM PST

But any failing DVDRW would do that error when too old.

Try another drive next to save losing more time on this.
Bob

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that's interesting-new!
Dec 18, 2010 9:32AM PST

Ok, I assume the software, which is what I still think is the problem, will be replaced with a new drive. Hopefully this is a do-it-yourself job.
Thanks again.
Joe Sortais

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Wait. We can replace software now.
Dec 18, 2010 9:53AM PST

Remember that this is not a driver issue. If it is a software issue, uninstall all there is to do with this drive and try a test recording with CDBURNERXP.

Be sure to record at 1/2 the media speed or drive speed, which ever is lower.

Sorry but I didn't notice that you thought it was software. That we can address now.
Bob

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wait. we can replace software now.
Dec 20, 2010 2:47AM PST

Bob
ok i went thru the other potential software fixes. The drive still didn't work, so went to the store, replaced the drive and miraculously everything works now! So the time spent working on this comes out to about $2/hr, but i learned a lot and appreciate your help on the final good solution.
Joe Sortais