Hello all,

I recently helped a buddy of mine fix his laptop. He bought a bad copy of Win Vista and it led to a huge array of problems including some trojans and viruses. Long story short, we ended up doing a clean install, deleted the partition, rebuilt, and formatted it. We put Win XP Pro SP2 on it and almost everything is going well except for the DVD-RAM drive. It's a DVD/CDR burner combo. It will only read original DVDs and original cds. Anything that is burned, including music cds, can't be read. I downloaded the software for the drive from the Toshiba site and it still does the same thing. And I know the lasers have to be working otherwise it wouldn't be able to read originals. I've tried researching the problem but keep coming up with very vague information. What are your thoughts and how might I resolve this? I appreciate any advice you can give.

Thanks,

Internalrage

I suggest you try burning something and seeing if the drive can then read that disk.

I forgot to mention I did that already and it still doesn't read the burned cd. I'm all out of ideas at this point.

Internalrage

Then you have a defective drive. Is the drive is propely identified during post?

Please confirm that you have tried reading Cd's that were burned successfully on another computer. That point was not made 100% clear.

Yes the drive is properly identified at POST. I verified this by using my XP disk to boot from the dvd drive and it worked. Also, yes I tried several successfully burned cds from another computer and they show up as blanks as do the cds burned on the Toshiba laptop.

Internalrage

Replace the drive. There is no fixing a drive that will only read commercially produced disks. It is a symptom of a weakened laser or other wear & tear. Don't waste any more time & effort.

I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

Unfortunately that's the same answer I came up with. I was just hoping it was an easy, free fix that I overlooked. I'll let him know and thank you all for your advice and suggestions.

Take care,

Internalrage

Because this is a laptop drive it might be worth getting a lense cleaning kit and using it. My understanding is that there are two lasers in a combo drive. CD & DVD. The CD laser uses higher intensity to burn CD media and lower to read CD media. The same goes for the DVD side of things. Don't know about the DVD ram at all.

So it stands to reason both lasers are working. The question is if the lasers are weak or are trying to penetrate a dirty lense. The lense can det dirty from the burning process.

Interesting that you said that. I went and bought a cd/dvd drive cleaning disc today and used it. It didn't help. I think the cd laser really is shot and as far as I know it would probably be cheaper to buy another combo drive rather than taking it to a pc shop. I appreciate the advice nonetheless.

Internalrage

At least you have carried the troublshooting process as far as is practical.