My killer test is this.
1. Use a CD lens cleaner.
2. Boot from a silver factory made CD.
No boot? Replace the CD drive.
It's a common sign of an aging drive for it to become finicky, read some disks and not others. It's not fun to watch an owner go into denial mode for a month or two while they search for drivers and firmware. But it happens.
Bob
My Sony Vaio notebook will not read software CD's. I've uninstalled the Drive and reinstalled it. It will read music CD's and any other CD, but if the CD is software to be installed, it spins away, when I open the F Drive manually, it shows blank. NO, the CD is not damaged as it can be installed on another laptop or desktop. I've also installed the CD Recovery Disk - it seems to read that just fine... Anyone have any suggestions?

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