restored laptop to original configuration..problems..
 

it's a dell inspiron 9300. first thing i did was organize data folders with family pics, documents, etc. that i didn't wanna lose and cut to a portable hard drive. then i forgot until it was too late, after doing a F11 command and making it restore itself to the original point when i bought it (remanufactured)..prompting me for country, language, time-zone, etc. in doing so, i lost all of my installed programs that i did myself, as well as forgetting to move about 500 songs i'd downloaded over two years...ouch! don't guess there's anything i can do about losing them as well as all my bookmarks..forgot to save that file as well (it was the middle of thenight and i should have left it well enough alone).

other problem is that my dvd+rw drive won't play. it lights up, makes sounds here and there, but never gets to spinning up. right-clicking the drive and checking the device, it says it's working properly. the laptop did suffer a little fall a few months back..could it have just loosened a cable inside? if so, is the drive easily removed or is time for the 'geek squad'? i've taken apart and re-worked a few desktops in my day, but never messed inside of a laptop. any advice?
thanks!
ryan

holy cow...windows media player just did 'do you want to look for more music files' question during new configuration and found my 580 songs! :) well, that part's a huge relief!

spoke too soon.. :( only found some, maybe 50. i think most of it was in the 'shared folder' under doc's and settings that was cleared out when i forgot to move those files to the portable drive during the reset. crud..

is the dvd a dual cd/dvd device?

they have 2 lasers, one for cd, one for dvd. sometimes one laser fails and not the other, try various media

thanks. yes, it will operate both. just checked..it will play a dvd, but won't recognize a blank or installation cd... :(

There usually is only one laser that adjusts its height and intensity. Having taken many apart for the laser and rotor, I have never found two.

Check the recycle bin, might be some files in there that you want to restore.

Just fixed a PC for a friend and the problem was dual lasers. CD worked, DVD was dead.

Don't remember the specific model number/manufacturer.

But did you actually tear down the drive? I have two in front of me and they are both one laser.

No, I did a search for known problems with the particular brand and model and it was the first of many threads that showed up.

Just because you have not seen one yet does not mean it is not true.

I'm not saying they don't exist, but dual laser drives are rare and usually old. It's less expensive to use one laser that changes intensity and moves in order to read/write. I have dismantled around 100 over the years for the parts and have not come across a dual laser unit. Regardless on single/dual, the drives are sensitive. The laser unit floats and even readers adjust the distance of the laser from the media. If you drop or jar an optical drive, there is a chance you will not the laser unit out of whack.

You can take a laser out of an optical drive and in about half an hour, create a little laser pointer that will actually cause a match to combust or pop balloons

So if you spend a couple hours on it, can you build a "death ray":eek:

none, joe..setting the system back to original configuration wiped a lot out.

it's a sony dvd+rw DW-Q58A......?

Every now and then, a low level driver in Windows corrupts and you have to go into the registry remove the entry and reboot. Windows will rebuild the registry key and your drive may work.

These are the two registry keys you need to find and remove.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\LowerFilters

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\UpperFilters

gettin' on this like flies on *****.. ;) will report shortly..

found the registry keys, but not where it says \lower filters or upper filters?

nope, found a line that says lower filters, but not higher....should i go ahead and delete the lower filters line?

Here's a screen shot:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1203633382.jpg

If the upperfilters line does not exist, don't delete it ;)

Delete the lowerfilters, close regedit, reboot and see what happens.

wilco. i can't recall how i used to take screen shots, but may not be able to now since i lost all the programs i'd downloaded over the past two years since i did the reset to original factory delivery.. :(

To take a screen image of just the window you want - regedit, hold down the alt key and press "print scrn" (to the right of F12). Windows has a built in image editor, Goto Start->Run and type in mspaint.

hi dave,
still not seeing the cd after deleting low filters entry, exiting and re-booting. i did the alt/print screen, but nothing happened..or it took a pic and i don't know the file path it saved it under?

You have to paste the screen shot into mspaint or other application (i.e. Photoshop). Optical drive may be bad. Do you have another that you can test with?

no, it's the only drive that i have.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1203634873.jpg

Optical drives are around $60.00. Ya may bite the bullet and pick a new one up. The registry trick only works if the drive is good, but a driver may have become corrupt. It was worth a try.

dave, no chance it could be a driver issue? although it shows to be working properly in device manager. did you decide it my model's a dual or single laser?

$60 for a replacement drive. okay..how much would best buy's geek squad probably charge to install? i've played inside plenty of desktops, but it's been a while and i've never opened up a laptop..

thanks so much for your help, dave. :)

Whoops, I missed that it was for a laptop. Those drive are more expensive. There aren't really any drivers for an optical drive outside of the native windows drivers. There is a firmware upgrade for the drive, but it may not fix the problem. Laptop optical drives are usually easy to replace. Most of the time, there is a screw on the bottom of the laptop that secures it. Your drive is about $100.00. Google sony dvd+rw DW-Q58A. Lots of people having problems.

ahhh....i will google it. think i should replace with another brand/model? i think i see the screw. if that's all that holds it..great. i guess you could then pull out the entire drive unit and the cabling would come out, too, so you can detach and replace without opening more of the computer?

Could you just reformat and hope for the best? I've had things not "'take" the first time around. Another option is get a usb external drive. I have a Plextor that works nicely. Yeah - it's a pain to haul around an external drive, but not too bad. Plus I can count on one hand how often I use my drive.

No cable should come out. The drive usually "plugs" into the laptop. If anything, you would have to take a plate off of the bad optical drive and put it onto the new one. If you were to get the same drive, it would be obvious of what needs to be moved.

You can't really just go buy any brand optical drive for a laptop. You would have to figure out what optical drive models are compatible for your laptop and that is not easy for an end user to do.

Dave

Here's an example site that lists various drives for laptops...
http://www.bixnet.com/lapexcddriv.html

hey, bob..that's a reasonable idea..except i might use mine to watch movies while traveling.

thanks for the link dave...guess i'll get this taken care of tomorrow.

Chill, have you visited the Dell website yet? You should be able to look up your exact model and get all of the appropriate drivers.

Load the movies onto your hardrive (from the external drive). I think you use less battery that way - could be wrong.