I guess this is a well worked-over question, but I can not find a reasonable answer in the archive.

I am faced with a (single) DVD-CD/RW Drive that will still run an OEM install disc and install the software, but it will no longer read or write to an ordinary CD.
It will not play DVD's or music CD's either. A blank CD shows up as full in "Properties". Device Manager shows drive and driver good.

Yes, I need to buy a new lens cleaner, but why does it run an software install disc and do nothing else?

What do you think?
Thanks for the thots.

DVD and CD media require two different lasers. I think your DVD laser is dead and the CD laser is tired. The reason it may still be able to read your factory CD is that factory CDs are not made in the same manner as CDRs. Will it play any other factory CD? This drive is no doubt pretty old. I have no explanation on why it falsely reads blank disks as full.

I wouldn't waste money trying to rejuvinate it. I just ordered 2 Lite-on DVD burners from Newegg.com for $30 with free shipping. I have had the same identical drive in one of my machines for about 6 months with no problems. Burns great, no coasters. As other have noted it is a lttle noisy, that doesn't bother me. If you spin a disk fast enough it will get noisy.

http://www.newegg.com/product/produ...

Is that On the Hill or Over the Hill? LOL

Thanx for the reply and you pretty much confirmed my suspicions. The drive is in a friends 3 yr old HP A750W (WalMart). I had already been checking out the Lite-On's at newegg and I can't find any info to see if they are compatible with these weird looking HP's. Guess I'll give them a call.

What do you know about HP's crappy Recovery Console? I was under the impression that it would do a format and clean reinstall of Windows. It did not. As far as I can tell it just refreshed all the original settings and reinstalled all the junk software. All the old profiles/partitions are still there. Or did I do something wrong?

OvertheHill
All desktop optical drives are physically the same size. All were IDE/ATA/APATI interface until recently. SATA is now available but the computer in question probably won't accept SATA anyway. I don't recommend SATA optical drives anyway. They seem to be problematic and there is currently no advantage. You no doubt have an IDE/ATA (wide cable) interface.

The differences in burners currently, other than the interface, is if they are capable of dual layer write/ read and if they do lightscribe, which is a method of applying labeling directly to the disk. If the old drive wasn't capable of burning DVD media it certainly isn't capable of lightscribe. IMHO lightscribe is a gimmic. The disks are more expensive and it has to wear out the drive faster.