Bought a disc cleaner but no use as it couldn't be read by my PC so no use. Have now bough and installed a new drive and all is now well. You were right, the drive was u/s. The only problem is, and I had this with the old drive, is that any disc inserted will not Autorun despite the fact it has been set to do so via my control panel. Any ideas?
Sometimes a lens is so dirty it takes several cleans to get it back, other times it's so bad it would require a more extreme cleaning, and given the fact it's a laser device, and how cheap new drives are these days it's always better to bin it and get a new one as you have now done, but it does suck I admit, but to help your new drive avoid the same fate, get in the habit of checking the disks you put in, if it's dirty clean it first, this is where a lot of the trouble comes from, but like anything mechanical it will break eventually.
But when you run the cleaner in the drive you don't see the display, at least I don't think you do (never used one TBH), it just spins up and by doing so the brushes pass over the lens and clean it, the auto play sounds like a security setting, most likely applied from some 3rd party security your using, at least thats my guess ATM, some would suggest this is a good thing, because the auto run is a cause of many infections, but when using safe disks I appreciate it can be a pain, but what security are you using ? then we can try and find out more.
I don't know the settings of that so not sure if it would affect this, some tweaking programs also disable auto run and the like, but if it runs when the iPod connects then it may be something else there, what sort of disks are you trying to auto run ?
Hi, yeah it's not the easiest of things to follow, but lets start with something really simple, click on Start - Control Panel - Device Manager, uninstall the optical drive (expand that section) via right clicking on it, allow the reboot prompt and when the system fires up again allow it to auto install it again, lets see if that sets the options back to default.
When you uninstall this way you are always (in my experience anyway) greeted with a pop up saying it now needs to reboot to complete the task, when this happens agree (allow the reboot), when you finish rebooting and everything is loading again you will get another pop up (again in my experience at least), this will say it's found new hardware, and will ask you if you want to install it, just say yes and select to allow the system to automatically do it for you, it will then reinstall the drive ready for use again.
My hope is that during this process it will reset all the settings back to the default, and thus give you back your auto run, it's a long shot, but is so simple to do it can't hurt, hope that explains it better for you.
Thats a shame, I was hoping for a simple solution lol, oh well lets see what we can find, lets quickly check the registry to see what is happening in there, now the registry is a dangerous place, so extreme caution must be used in there, but it has the same rule as the bios, as long as you don't make any changes you wont do any harm, but it's always recommended to create a back up of the registry BEFORE touching it, it allows you to restore it if something goes wrong, but so long as you go slow and steady there should be no problems, if at any time your concerned, or have a doubt, then exit without saving and check for help about that before continuing.
Once you are ready, click on Start - Run, in the box type "regedit" (without the quotes), then slowly expand out each step\section to reach the following location, it's no different to navigating to say C:\Programs etc, so just expand 1 part of the location at a time, then move down to the next location, and repeat until you get to the last part, so don't try to find the whole location in 1 go, it will make it easier going for you, even if it is a bit slower, but it is the safest approach when your unsure.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom
Locate the AutoRun registry value in the right pane, and check that the value data for AutoRun is set as 1 (one), which is enabled, If it is 0 (zero), it is disabled, to re-enable the AutoRun change the value to 1, this is done simply by double clicking on the AutoRun entry, then enter 1 in the box and save it, then exit the registry and see if the problem is resolved, I'm out for a large part of tomorrow, but will reply as soon as I can if needed, hope this helps, but if you do not feel confident enough to do this then let us know and we will try and find another way to check.
*edit
Totally forgot to add the screen shot I took to show you what to expect, so here it is, it will be a little different perhaps as thats xp, but the principle is the same.
I have navigated to the required file. See clip 'Registry Tree' and then to the files listed on the right hand pane. There is one file listed under the 'data' section as IDE\CDRomTSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH-S223Q_____"" (see 'RegistryValues') which, I assume, relates to my CD drive. Against this entry there is an icon AB0 and I presume the zero in that is the value you refer to. If I right click on that icon a menu appears and one one listed is 'Modify'. When I click on Modify another box opens entitled 'Edit String'. In the Edit String box there is a listing under 'value name' where a zero appears and if I try to delete the 0 and change it to 1 I am unable to edit in that box. The second row in the Edit String box can be edited but I do not know whether I should touch that part. This is as far as I can go, so no change.
I appreciate that it may be difficult for you to visualise as I am running Vista and you have XP.
That doesn't look right, I suspect you may not have gone far enough, can I just check with you that you have highlighted CDRom on the left pane ? the screenshot doesn't show down enough to check if you have, because with that highlighted I would expect to see AutoRun in the right pane.
As to editing it, do NOT change ANY of these settings until we are sure the correct one is identified, and when we do edit it you do not edit the string or anything, as I said above just double click it and a box will open with either an 0 or a 1 in it, we just change this according to what we want to achieve, so if you could check that again it would be a help, and I'll try and get my hands on a vista system tomorrow to check what you may be seeing incase it's a bit different in your settings.
I suspect that your security programs have shut autorun off. Many do. I'd further suggest that you leave it off. It is a risky function as it can load malware on your system faster than your security can catch it. (Not a perfect description but you get the idea).
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