Sony laptop DVD

[rjonst]

So I have a pristine Sony PCG-GR270K, very little use, however a couple years ago, the HDD went bad. I replaced the drive, and attempted to format the new drive and re-install the OS, but when the system is turned on now, the DVD does not spin up. The system merely reverts to the HDD and comes up with "Can't find operating system". The DVD was working fine prior to the HDD problem and I have to reemphasize, this system has very little use.

So, my thoughts are that the DVD is not the problem, as you can still set it as the boot drive in the BIOS. My thought are that the DVD drivers can't be found, thus there's no interaction with it. So how do you get the drivers installed if I can't even get the Hard drive formatted and working somewhat?

The other road, of course, is that the DVD has actually failed and they are getting scarce. I have found a couple for 125 or so, but it would seemingly be foolish at this point to go this route.
Any ideas?
thanks

 

[Mark56]

Your way out of this is to get an external CD/DVD drive, set it to 1st boot device in the bios and reinstall the OS from there.

You could also try taking the drive out and refitting to reseat the connections.

 

[rjonst]

External CD

I was under the impression that it would need the CD drivers loaded to use that method. However, I have another Sony (VAIO) with a CD on a PCM card. What do you think about using that?
thx

 

[Mark56]

I was under the impression that it would need the CD drivers loaded to use that method.

All you need to do is set the bios to boot from USB device, it should run as do most CD/DVD drives without you having to install drivers as is the case with hard drives. You can consider CD/DVD drives and hard drives as plug and play in most cases. All windows OS's have built in support for the vast majority of drives. Sata drives are the only exception I know of.

 

[Mark56]

I have another Sony (VAIO) with a CD on a PCM card. What do you think about using that?

As long as that gets recognised in the Bios it should do the job, no harm in trying.

So, my thoughts are that the DVD is not the problem, as you can still set it as the boot drive in the BIOS. My thought are that the DVD drivers can't be found, thus there's no interaction with it. So how do you get the drivers installed if I can't even get the Hard drive formatted and working somewhat?

I didn't answer this. The drive has most likely developed a fault. Windows will automatically recognise and install drivers for a CD/DVD drive. The fact that it shows in the Bios means that windows recognises it but that does not mean it is fully functional.