Lately, my DVD rom has been having problems finding disks. It will only find disks that boot in DOS on this computer, on my other computer, the ROM finds and uses every single disk I put in it. I read another topic about this and it said that it could have been a problem with the power supply, so I took my other HDD off. Now I only have one HDD, DVD ROM, and floppy but the ROM has only found one disk and wont touch regular CD's, only DVD's.

There could be 3 reasons 1. You might be using cheap and nasty media 2. The unit may be begining to fail 3. The lens may need cleaning Suprisingly 3 is very common and 2 realy means buy a new one

K, well I can omit number 3 because it works on my other computer just fine. The only problem I have with using it on my other computer, is that my other computer is a development computer, not a full working at-home desktop. It also used to work just fine, had been for 2 years until about a month ago. Number 1, however, I will agree on. I got it at CompUSA and it was one of the cheaper ones. Plus, it's not really a brand name product, I mean, it's called 'Generic DVD RW' for a reason... Number 2, I've put that in perspective, and I still believe it. However, as I've said, it works just fine on my other computer.

Is this drive just a reader or a burner? The burning process is what usually dirties the lense. Have you tried reseating the ribbon cable?

Well, the name of this topic is DVD RW... so yes, it's a burner. I don't think I need to reseat the cable because I have a crappy normal CD ROM that works just fine on here. The purpose of me getting the DVD RW on here is so I can burn some CD/DVD's. Now by dirty, you mean is in a dust type of dirty, or a broken kind of dirty? I was about to get a disk cleaner from Wal-Mart, but decided not to for some reason.

"Well, the name of this topic is DVD RW... so yes, it's a burner. I don't think I need to reseat the cable because I have a crappy normal CD ROM that works just fine on here" Then why do you say: "Lately, my DVD rom" A DVDrom is a read only. Sorry I tried to help you. If you have all the answers then help yourself.

I didn't answer any of my own problems, I was explaining to you and I'm thankful you tried to help. I just got a DVD rom cleaner and now when I put a normal CD in, it makes this weird clicky noise the light stays lit and it just clicks like it's hitting something and it keeps going back and forth. Would you say I just need to get a new DVD rom?