Optical Drive won't read, makes strange noises.

[evanwilson6]

I have an Alienware Sentia m3200. My optical drive is not working. If I insert a disc, I get the gruntish things every second or so, but the discs never show up. (See the wav file) If I was stingy on the info and specs, please ask for more info.

Any ideas?

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Try a new ide cable, if that doesn`t help, uninstall the drive from your device manager and reboot your computer. Windows will redetect the drive.


If it`s still no go, your drive may have died on you and a replacement may be necessary.

Regards Howard

 

[iss]

When your optical drive starts making weird noises and doesnt work, you might as well break out the butter, cause your drive is toast.

 

[evanwilson6]

It works, oddly only with DVDs.

I tried Matrix in the drive. It plays. Now my Palm Desktop CD is a different story.

This is the Slimtype DVDRW SOS-W833S in a laptop. I'm afraid of firmware but I will update if necessary. I've also noticed that this model is very eratic in Acer laptops, however, this an Alienware and I haven't found any reports. Again, any ideas?

The noises are only with the CDs. DVDs are all fine. Even burning. I just burned the Vista DVD.

 

[iss]

Then the noises are probably rhe Cd laser assembly which has gone bad.

 

[evanwilson6]

I don't understand. So there are 2 lasers, one for the CD and one for the DVD?

 

[iss]

Yes DVDRW drives have two lasers, one for Cd and the other for DVD.

 

[evanwilson6]

Grrr.... Well, to get a replacement.

Thanks very much, I guess money will have to be shelled out.

Can I buy any optical drive with a 50 pin IDE that's left side fixed? Slim too, I assume.