Matshita UJ-830S Problem

I recently replaced a broken dvd rom in my laptop with another. It had been working fine in every mode until now. For some reason, my drive is not recognized by the bios at start-up. Therefore, I don't have an option to "Boot from CD" on start up. The drive is functioning properly once XP loads. It just doesn't work from power on startup to windows startup. Details: Matshita UJ-830S DVD RAM Drive Windows XP Pro Toshiba Satellite P25-s509 No Floppy drive Bios: BTQ00 BIOS V1.6 Phoenix Bios 4.0 rel 6.0 I have checked the boot order in the BIOS. It is set correctly to boot from CD first. There is no CD recognized in the BIOS. I understand there is an update to my BIOS available but I can't load it because there is no option to boot from CD and I don't have a Floppy Drive. I can't understand how it worked before but does not now. I also can't understand why it works in windows but not during the initial boot up. I'm somewhat computer savvy but certainly not a professional. Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Toshiba does not list that model Satellite P25-s509

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su…t/jsp/home.jsp#

Although I see it via Google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Satellite+P…amp;startPage=1

Are you certain that in the past the BIOS detected it?

Have you tried booting a disk?

Have you set your BIOS settings to default?

Also, although this function should work, is there some reason you feel the need to update your BIOS?

The laptop model is an older one that I'm running for my kids computer. Its not new. The drive is a replacement so you won't find it as orignal equipment anywhere. Yes, it worked before because I was able to use it as a boot drive to reformat and image the hard drive. I'm assuming the bios needed to recognize it in order to do that (I'm nowhere near a computer professional). I was uncertain if a bios update would help this situation. There is an update available and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try this but I'm unable to do it because I need the computer to boot from the CD in order to install the bios update. As far as booting from a disk, I don't have a floppy drive for this computer to boot from. Only the harddrive (which works fine) and the CD Drive that works only in XP not during boot up. I have restored the bios to the default settings with the exception of the boot order which is set to find the CD Drive first. It skips it and goes directly to the hard drive and windows boots normally. Once in windows the CD Drive is recognized and appears to work fine. Thank you for the input.

Very strange problem. Google shows a couple other similar issues but no solutions. Just to pursue troubleshooting: Can you describe how your old drive failed? You say you have been able to boot this new drive at least once? Then not since then? If you set all BIOS defaults and either view the POST or enter the BIOS Setup is there any indication of a CD drive? In other words a test not to try and boot but just to see if at default settings the BIOS has any other detection.

the indications of the previous drive failures (there were 2 previous failures) were the drive was recognized in windows but did not recognize a disk when placed in the tray. someone told me this indicated a motor failure in the drive ( i don't know that for sure). the previous drives were both uj-811??? (i think). both worked for a short time then failed. i replaced it with a uj-830s that did work initially in all modes but now only works within the xp environment. i booted from this drive several times with different disks (xp setup disk and imaging software disk) after receiving it and it worked great. when i enter the bios page, i do not have an indication of a cd drive. there is a '+' by the hard drive that shows the id of the hard drive but no '+' indicating a recognized cd drive. someone suggested the possibility of a corruption of the cd drive bios itself (firmware i guess). i'm not sure if i can get my hands on that software to either roll it back or update the firmware with a newer version. any thoughts on that? question….post=power on self test? how would i view that?

There should be an option in your General BIOS tab to show either a Logo screen or POST. To freeze a post screen for viewing you can press Pause. The CD drive should be seen by the POST. Another idea is the following: Remove the drive and boot up once without it then shutdown and reinstall it and try again. As to your older drives disk read failure is often software related. Certainly drives can mechanically fail but just as often it is a software issue.