Solved DVD drive will read CD but not DVD

[hdbg62]

Just about came to the same conclusion but then I remembered what I was doing before the dvd player showed up. I was testing a bootable usb stick which I created according to the instructions in this forum. I booted from the usb which is a copy of the install disk for the laptop and which worked fine. After that, I booted the normal way and that’s when the dvd player showed up; what made it disappear after ten minutes, I don’t know. Tried the same routine again, booting with the usb just to get me to the Windows install screen, opted out, booted the regular way and dvd player is back! Changed the drive letter, booted into safe mode, dvd player still there; numerous soft and hard boots, even putting it to sleep manually for awhile, dvd player still there. Let the laptop go to sleep on its own, when I woke it up, dvd player is gone. So I repeated the same scenario, usb install disk boot first, out of it, boot the normal way and the dvd player is back; it’s back as I write this. Even uninstalled the dvd player, rebooted and the dvd player was there. One thing I know for sure, if the dvd player is gone and I boot first with that bootable usb, get out of it, boot regular, the dvd player is back; have tried it often enough. Don’t know why. What I’m trying now is to figure out why the dvd player disappears by turning off the “put the computer to sleep after….” option and just putting it to sleep myself when I need it; I remember somewhere in all my searching on this that in one instance the “put the computer to sleep after…..” option came into play and when turned off solved the problem in that instance. Don’t understand why what’s happening is happening, so I’m willing to try anything. Have been at this most of the night. All of it does not make any sense to me; we’ll see.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Sounds to me like something installed on your laptop is determined to wipe out that drive....there could be clues in the Event Viewer.

 

[hdbg62]

Spent hours looking at that; other than giving me codes for the player not being installed, I couldn't find much in there that was of any help. Had the machine sit idle with the screen off for about an hour and dvd player is still showing. Will put it to sleep manually now for about an hour or so and wait what happens when it wakes up. I noticed that ever since the dvd reappeared the laptop boots much faster (normal) than it has in the last couple of weeks; would sit on the start-up option for about a minute, now it's barely a couple of seconds

 

[Ex_Brit]

I probably mentioned this before but if can determine the make of your CD/DVD burner, go to the manufacturer's website or Google it and look for their firmware updates (firmware, not driver). Often they have a utility that will check for you. But often a firmware update cures all ills in my experience.

 

[hdbg62]

Am giving up. Did Cclean of the registry (no items had anything to do with DVD CD-rom) and registry defrag because I had installed and uninstalled different programs which I thought might help my current situation but didn’t. DVD player disappeared and now I can’t even bring it back using the method described in my earlier post.

I’ll get one those slim-atapi to USB conversions for the DVD (they’re cheap enough) and hope Windows will load the driver; if it does, at least I’ll know that my problem is connector/motherboard related.

Am grateful for Brink’s article on “USB Bootable Vista Installation Flash Thumb Drive.” Didn’t even know that’s possible, now I’ve got something to fall back on if anything should ever haven to my installation.

 

[Ex_Brit]

CClean could easily clean something out that you need for DVD drives, how would you know for sure and this registry defrag, what's that by name? You can either defrag a system or you can't, I was never familiar with something that just defragged the registry.

I suspect you are wiping out important registry keys in the process.

 

[hdbg62]

Registry defragmentation is a normal operation, just like disk defragmentation. Brink has small coverage on it in his tutorial in this forum, http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/81176-speed-up-performance-vista.html?filter[11]=Performance%20Maintenance. Auslogics has a free one and a good one, I also use their disk defrag and registry cleaner programs, Best Free Registry Defrag Software Download. Ccleaner is a good (free) program to clean up your files and clean your registry (I've using it once a month for years, CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Ah OK, then that's OK, but although CCleaner is good, it could feasibly remove stuff that is essential. I would never use it except if I had a problem uninstalling a specific programme. Cleaning up the registry of things it may think are garbage is not a good idea. Registry cleaners in general are a very bad idea unless you know exactly what you are doing. They invariably clean more than they should, but it would seem you know what you are doing so I'll leave it at that.
All I'm saying is, it certainly isn't normal for a drive to simply disappear unless a) there's a loose connection to it or b) the associated registry keys have been wiped out or altered in some way.

 

[hdbg62]

I’m tired of the problem, have spent a month on it without any lasting results. On the web, some of the Microsoft fixes have worked for some but not for others. Guess, I’m just one of the “others.”

 

[Ex_Brit]

Sorry you can't seem to find a permanent fix.

 

[hdbg62]

Just to give you an idea what I'm dealing with, just moments ago I turned the laptop on and the DVD player is back!

 

[Ex_Brit]

Weird. It's like a ghost ..almost.

 

[hdbg62]

Was not doing anything looking for it. Laptop was shut down, I turned it on, there is the DVD/CD.

 

[Ex_Brit]

It's a pretty sure thing that some software somewhere is doing something when it runs to obliterate it, so best not run anything unnecessary.