MITSUMI CR-48XATE - my CD drive is messed up

[shavedfish]

Hi
Bought my PC a while back, and the CD rewriter drive ceased functioning and was replaced by PC World.
They put in a MITSUMI CR-48XATE (32x/10x/40x CD-RW)
For some reason, this has also ceased functioning. The warranty has since expired, so I was wondering if I might be able to fix it?

To be more specific about the problem, the drive is shown in the device manager as running normally, appears in My Computer, but when I put in discs autorun does not run, and double clicking on the drive icon brings up either an empty folder or a "please insert a disc into drive G:"
And I've tried using different discs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, music CDs, etc..

I heard of people having to update firmware, apparently it's risky, but I had a look. I can't seem to find firmware for this specific drive, though. Or drivers, either, if disc drives have drivers.

Any ideas please?

 

[gavinseabrook]

Well, the cd-r/rw drive the sold you seems kinda slow lol. How much do you burn? Sometimes after burning a **** load of discs, the drives start to show problems. please list your system specs

 

[shavedfish]

Hmm I don't think I burned that many, a few music CDs, formatted a couple.

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 2500 MHz (25 x 100)
Motherboard Name MSI MS-6533 (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 DIMM, Audio)
Motherboard Chipset SiS 645
System Memory 512 MB (PC2100 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (08/06/02)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X (128 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X
Monitor Acer AL1714 [17" LCD] (ETL1809049)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Creative SB0410 SB Live! 24-bit Sound Card
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

Storage:
IDE Controller SiS PCI IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive ST380020A (80 GB, 5400 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163 (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
Optical Drive MITSUMI CR-48XATE (32x/10x/40x CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 38146 MB (18857 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 38170 MB (18123 MB free)
Total Size 74.5 GB (36.1 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

Network:
Network Adapter GlobeSpan USB ADSL LAN Modem (169.254.65.210)
Network Adapter WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface (172.143.136.244)

Peripherals:
Printer Lexmark Z600 Series
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB Device GlobeSpan USB ADSL LAN Modem
USB Device USB Printing Support

 

[raybay]

CD-RW and DVD-RW drives now seem to be among the most fragile and early-failing components in a computer. Mitsumi is no better nor worse than most. If your drive was used a great deal, or if it was a year or more old, its failure is now considered normal. Luckily, these drives are now widely available for $22 to $49... with Wal-Mart and Best Buy selling the CD-RW for $29, and the DVD-RW for $39 to $49.
The only drives we see regularly of better quality, and thus longer lasting, are the Plextors, Yamaha's, and Pioneers. Samsung, LG, and Liteon are good. LaCie, HP, Sony, and HDLS or HDS seem to have early failure rates. But the Plextors and Yamaha's cost a lot more... almost triple.

 

[foozy]

Just replace it, its a cheap component and usually requires pretty high technical understanding to troubleshoot.

Go for Lite-On, i've never had one fail on me. Stay away from Sony and LG.

 

[SNGX1275]

See if it will boot off a cd. Just insert a bootable cd and reboot, make sure your bios is set to look at the cd drive before the hard drive. If it doesn't boot up, check your cables, if still doesn't work your drive is dead.

Go for Lite-On, i've never had one fail on me. Stay away from Sony and LG.

I've had 2 fail with very little use. And at least one Sony burner is a rebadged Lite-On.

 

[shavedfish]

CD-RW and DVD-RW drives now seem to be among the most fragile and early-failing components in a computer. Mitsumi is no better nor worse than most. If your drive was used a great deal, or if it was a year or more old, its failure is now considered normal. Luckily, these drives are now widely available for $22 to $49... with Wal-Mart and Best Buy selling the CD-RW for $29, and the DVD-RW for $39 to $49.
The only drives we see regularly of better quality, and thus longer lasting, are the Plextors, Yamaha's, and Pioneers. Samsung, LG, and Liteon are good. LaCie, HP, Sony, and HDLS or HDS seem to have early failure rates. But the Plextors and Yamaha's cost a lot more... almost triple.

Just replace it, its a cheap component and usually requires pretty high technical understanding to troubleshoot.

Go for Lite-On, i've never had one fail on me. Stay away from Sony and LG.

Ah thanks. I guess I just assumed it would be an expensive component.
It'll be over a year old, so that explains it. I never really used it to burn many CDs, just for reading them.
The Liteon DVD drive I got with the computer, so that's outlasted both those CD-RW drives. I might buy one of theirs.

See if it will boot off a cd. Just insert a bootable cd and reboot, make sure your bios is set to look at the cd drive before the hard drive. If it doesn't boot up, check your cables, if still doesn't work your drive is dead.

Thanks, I'll try that