I have been having problems with my Gateway Laptop's CD/DVD burner: it reads
disks fine, but it doesn't write properly. I got one single disk written today (I'm doing
backups) but ended up with 5 bad disks, four written with Nero and one with the Windows
disk writer - both ended with errors, and the disks have the files but some are corrupted.
The disks are rated at 52x and I was burning at 24x, so I'll assume that's not the problem
(even though the error message said "failed to burn at 24x").
I entered a Nero diagnostics program, and it didn't report much. It did report one error but
unfortunately I forgot to record it, and I don't remember how I got it (I actually reproduced
it several times) but I do remember it mentioned a problem with the SERVO, which would
suggest it may be a hardware problem. I am planning to try writing the disks on another
computer, to make sure it isn't the disks, but until then I fear it is the drive, as I have in the
past (though it has been a couple of months) successfully written to the disks, whereas
now I get five errors in a row, with only one success.
I did a lot of searching and found something in the Event Viewer. Apparently the
drive has had trouble with bad blocks lately, though exactly how this fits in with
writing troubles I'm not sure. It is possible that some of the errors are from some
bad disks I was looking at a couple weeks ago, but the errors I received today and the
past couple days aren't, since I didn't look at any bad disks then.
There are hundreds of these in Computer Management->System Tools->
Event Viewer->System. Looking back, the problem first appeared on 11/2/06
and has continued up to now.
The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/even...
Data:
0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 b8 00 ..h...¸.
0008: 00 00 00 00 07 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 00 01 00 00 9c 00 00 c0 ......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 68 01 29 00 00 00 00 .h.)....
0028: 8d 0b 03 00 00 00 00 00 .......
0030: ff ff ff ff 01 00 00 00 ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 c4 02 00 00 00 @..Ä....
0040: 00 20 0a 12 48 02 00 40 . ..H..@
0048: 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 ........
0050: 00 00 00 00 80 4b 27 82 ....K'
0058: 00 00 00 00 50 0a 1d 82 ....P..
0060: 02 00 00 00 2d 20 05 00 ....- ..
0068: 28 00 00 05 20 2d 00 00 (... -..
0070: 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0078: f0 00 03 00 05 20 2d 0b ð.... -.
0080: 00 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
All errors are the same; the data is almost always exactly the same except that
byte 0x7E (which is 0x2D, or "-" in this case) is often different - though I doubt
that will help any.
Is the drive broke, or could there be something else?
And a semi-unrelated question: if the drive is broke, is there a way to fix it, or is
it possible to replace it with another one (which I would presumably have to
order from Gateway)? I have just moved, so I can't find my Gateway warranty
(and frankly don't even remember if there is one...) Should I bother looking
for it, or try to buy a new drive- and is it even possible to buy a new drive for
a laptop, or is it likely to be a proprietary specially-made drive, which only Gateway
can replace?
If you can help please e-mail me TheMysteriousStrangerFromMars@yahoo.com or reply to this post!
