Hi,
For some unknown (to me) reason my computer will not play a CD or DVD nor can I install any software when a disc is in the drive. My computer tells me to insert a disc in the drive (which, of course, is already there) and promply ejects the DVD tray. I am unable to read any disc in Windows Explorer. I am using Windows Vista Home Premium. Can anyoe help please.
Thank You,
Norman
The most likely cause is the drive is faulty, well to be more exact the lenses are dirty, although it's unusual for both lenses to go at the same time (there is 1 for DVD and 1 for CD in them), I take it no matter whether it's a store bought disk or one burned yourself makes no difference ?
Best advice is to try a lens cleaner, most supermarkets should do them, they are a disk with bristles\brushes on one side, you add the solution that comes with it and play it in your drive, the hope is they aren't to far gone that this isn't man enough.
Worst case you will need to get a new drive, but they are so cheap these days it's not to drastic, but is\was this a heavily used drive > and were the disks you had used been dirty ?
Hi,
Thanks for your response. I doubt whether it's a faulty drive as the computer is only 2 yewars old and I hardley ever use the DVD/CD drive. Is there any sort of test I can make to determine whether it's a faulty drive? The discs I use are store bought, not home made.
Norman
The age of the drive has nothing to do with the probability of it being a bad drive or not.
Everything you said points to it being a dirty lens or bad drive as already suggested. If you are a smoker (no offense), two years is more than enough to coat the lens with a heavy residue rendering it useless.
You can hear if the drive is having problems reading your disc when you put the disc in. When you put a disc in the drive put your ear next to it. You should hear it spin briefly a couple of times while it tries to focus and read the disc. As soon as the disc is recognized you should hear the drive motor spin up at a highspeed and be steady. If you aren't hearing this, the drive is not reading the disc due to a dirty lens or bad drive. Instead you will hear the drive spin briefly a couple of times, or several times, and then just stop. There will be no high-speed spin up.
If you really want to prove if it is a software or hardware problem, then you need to get a boot disc of some sort. Either the Windows XP installation disc, your computer's recovery disc, or some other type of boot disc. Put the disc in the computer and attempt to boot it when you restart your computer. If you can't get the computer to boot to it the drive is not reading the discs.
But, to reiterate, the symptoms you have described say "bad drive," all over them.
Thanks for your response. I doubt whether it's a faulty drive as the computer is only 2 yewars old and I hardley ever use the DVD/CD drive. Is there any sort of test I can make to determine whether it's a faulty drive? The discs I use are store bought, not home made.
Norman
Hi, Yeah, thats why I expanded from "faulty" drive, by definition it's not working right it is faulty, just not in the usual way one may expect faulty to mean (eg dead hardware), but as said above the environment your in makes a big difference to the system, the ideal is an air tight (controlled environment) temperature room, but obviously for a home PC this is not going to happen, but it is the ideal, the condition of the media also plays a large part in this, so making sure each disk you insert is clean will help a lot as well, but it's always a matter of time before this happens, the greater the use the quicker it can happen, but hopefully using a cleaning disk will get it working again for you.
