DVD drive not working

I haven't used the CD/DVD drive in my laptop for quite a while, but just went to put a DVD in (backup DVD with photos). It whirred and clunked for a while, but nothing was happening. I tried a non-burnt DVD and it did the same thing (less clunking though). I did some googling and saw that heaps of people had this problem, but that CDs sometimes worked. I grabbed a CD and within a couple of seconds, iTunes opened up with the song list. Annoying. CDs = DVDs = I'm using Windows 7. Is there anything I should check to see if I can get it working?

Hi lolly sorry to hear about the problem with your CD/DVD drive. we see quite a few machines with this problem (reading cd's Ok but not DVD's) and just occasionally it helps to remove the upper and lower filters…especially if you have recently uninstalled some CD?DVD software….however the most usual cause is that the actual drive has developed a hardware fault and needs replacing… You can fit a replacement drive or alternatively use an external USB drive for the occasions when you need to use DVD's (borrowing one from a chum is the cheaper solution but external USB hard drives are available usually for around £20) Regards paws

The most common cause I come across is overuse (for want of a better word), the units have 2 lenses, one for CD's and one for DVD's, which is why you often see only one format working as in this case, and my first question is do you use that format a lot, and how clean are the disks you put in it, and if it comes back as heavy use, and probably some disks not as clean as others (you may not always see the dirt the lens could pick up), then it's pretty much a dirty lens every time, and by that time a lens cleaner probably wont be enough, it's good practice to use a disk cleaner say once a month, and wipe each disk as you put it in the unit, it will extend the life of it by doing this so you know for the future. So pretty much as paws said, it will need replacing as it is faulty, good news is they are pretty cheap these days, and easy to swap usually, just make sure you know if it's a Sata drive or ide, you should easily find that out by google'ing the model number, often on the front of the drive, as you will want to get the same format when replacing it as you can use the existing cables to make it easier, but checking the filters as paws has said costs nothing, so is always worth trying first, but I thought adding about dirty lenses etc. may also help as well as paws advice.