Just another cry for tech help..

[Mead]

I've been having a bit of weirdness lately with my cd rom drive.

About two months ago, it just stopped working- if you put a cd in, the 'play' light would flash on and off a few times, then nothing would happen. If I tried to access D Drive or play a game or whatever, i'd just get told that there was no cd in the drive. I tried any number of different cds, both games/programs, data storage ones i burnt myself, and music cds, and got the same result.

Anyway I jumped through all the Windows diagnostic hoops and checked in control panel, and in the hardware list it said that my cd rom drive was correctly installed and running fine, even though I was still getting no response from it. I thought it might be a driver problem, so i downloaded a new set, and it still didn't work.

Anyway, I gave up, and about three weeks later (spookily enough, whilst I was looking on ebay for a new cd rom drive) my cd rom drive's autoplay function kicks in, and the cd which I had left sitting in their for about a fortnight suddenly started up, through no action on my part. It worked fine, so I thought no worries, everything's good and forgot about it.

Now, a month later, exactly the same thing has happened again, and the drive has died on me again and stopped reading cds at all. As before, if i put one in, the light flashes a few times, and then nothing.

So does anyone have any idea what could be wrong, or whether or not its likely to be a problem with my system, or the drive itself? I sorta want to be sure that its a hardware issue before i shell out for a new cd rom drive..

 

[jim boy]

Originally posted by Mead
I've been having a bit of weirdness lately with my cd rom drive.

About two months ago, it just stopped working- if you put a cd in, the 'play' light would flash on and off a few times, then nothing would happen. If I tried to access D Drive or play a game or whatever, i'd just get told that there was no cd in the drive. I tried any number of different cds, both games/programs, data storage ones i burnt myself, and music cds, and got the same result.

Anyway I jumped through all the Windows diagnostic hoops and checked in control panel, and in the hardware list it said that my cd rom drive was correctly installed and running fine, even though I was still getting no response from it. I thought it might be a driver problem, so i downloaded a new set, and it still didn't work.

Anyway, I gave up, and about three weeks later (spookily enough, whilst I was looking on ebay for a new cd rom drive) my cd rom drive's autoplay function kicks in, and the cd which I had left sitting in their for about a fortnight suddenly started up, through no action on my part. It worked fine, so I thought no worries, everything's good and forgot about it.

Now, a month later, exactly the same thing has happened again, and the drive has died on me again and stopped reading cds at all. As before, if i put one in, the light flashes a few times, and then nothing.

So does anyone have any idea what could be wrong, or whether or not its likely to be a problem with my system, or the drive itself? I sorta want to be sure that its a hardware issue before i shell out for a new cd rom drive..

Could be a loose connection in your cd-rom, but I'd be willing to suggest that reseating the data cables might just fix the problem. Just pull out the wide cable from the motherboard and from the CD ROM and just put it straight back in again.

 

[Desredandwhite]

Yep, most likely a loose connection. Alternatively a solder joint has come loose or something, but locating and fixing it is probably not worth it. If stuffing around with the cables doesn't do the trick, IMHO just get a new one - they're cheap enough these days.

 

[KingyOrTheKing]

If you plan to buy a new CD drive, I would fork out a little extra for a new power supply. In my old computer, my PSU killed 2 new CD drives within 2 months....