Need Help with DVD RW Drive
 

It recognizes purchased CD's but will not recognized burned CD's or blank CD's. It just starts clicking over and over for a minute or two and then gives an error message.

Since it does read purchased CD's and blank DVD-Rs I don't think its a software issue. Tried the following:
-rebooting
-blowing out dust,
-reaching a long cue-tip in there to clan what I guess is the lens,
-pushing the lens to the back
-Windows Explorer doesn't recognize a disc in there.

I've got a 5.5 year old Dell running Vista 64 bit that works great otherwise. Full tower full height drive.
Is the drive toast? If so will any DVD-RW fit the tower?

After burning CD's and DVD's, there's usually a step called "finalizing" that closes it out and makes it recognizable on other machines... make sure you've done that.

Can't get the drive to see the blank CDR to burn anything onto it. Just clicking (the head bumping against the stop?)

Ahhh. I dunno... that's all I got. :)

Somebody much more knowledgeable will be along to help you out eventually... you can be certain of that.

In the meantime, spray WD-40 liberally inside the drive door.
:eek:

The burned cd's that it will not read, where they burned by that device?

The blank cd's that it will not read, have you successfully used media from that batch before or is this new media?

FYI, the drive has two lasers, one for CD's, one for DVD's. It's not uncommon for one to fail while the other continues to function so the fact that blank DVD's work is of little relevance for the CD problem.

And stop sticking stuff in there, that's a bad idea. It's not a cassette player.

So how do I know if my drive is a SATA or IDE? Dell was worthless for help. The phone rep said he had a replacement drive that is 1/2 height and I knew that wasn't correct.

http://www.stepbystep.com/wp-content...E-Harddisk.jpg

Probably easiest to just grab a new one.

They've become cheap enough to be disposable.

A new SATA DVD/CD burner is less than $20...

LG, Samsung, ASUS, Liteon
Any suggestions which one?

OK. I don't want to shut the system down tonight so can I tell from the info below if I have IDE DVD/CD?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1394938919.jpg
The pics stomachmonkey posted was for harddrives. Would the pin configuration be the same for optical drives?

Based on: PNP Device ID ------- IDE\CDROM::::::::::

...that would be my guess.

Don't know about pin configuration.

A CD/DVD is a drive, only diff is the media and the read/write heads, otherwise same same. Spinning platters of data.

It no matter.

http://www.computer-hardware-explain...e-labelled.jpg

Thanks for the help! Its a good thing I didn't go by the System Config Info:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1395004308.jpg

Looks like full height to me:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1395004368.jpg

Do all drives have the open/closed button configured in the same spot? The Dell has a face cover:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1395005132.jpg

Just buy the 1st one you find at Newegg, TigerDirect or MicroCenter. They're all the same... I just bought one for $17...

Just installed a new ASUS DVDCD burner from Newegg. Less than $30 with tax and shipping. Had to remove the power supply and processer fan to do the swap but easy enough.

Thanks to all who helped with info.