CD-RW not reading CDs but DVDs Okay

[cutiepyie]

Hi all,
I have a Toshiba Satellite Notebook running Windows XP Home Edition W/SP2 added. It has a builtin DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive that suddenly stopped being able to access any CD disc. It can read a DVD okay, but NOT CDs.

The device manager says all is fine and drive is "working properly".

I am at an empass and can not figure out what to do next.

Any help is Greatly appreciated!!

Sincerely,
Cindy

PS: This is the listing of the drive from "System Information":
[CD-ROM]

Item Value
Drive G:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded No
Media Type CD-ROM
Name TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-R2212
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate Not Available
SCSI Target ID 0
PNP Device ID IDE\CDROMTOSHIBA_DVD-ROM_SD-R2212________________1011____\325A363436333837303820202020202020202020
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 48.38 KB (49,536 bytes), 08/17/2001 9:52 AM)

 

[cdogg]

It could very well be the drive itself. DVD-ROM drives have two lens to control the intensity of the laser: one for CDs and one for DVDs. It could be that the CD lens is no longer working.

A good test is to use a Win98 boot disk if you have a floppy drive. If you don't have the disk, you can make one by downloading from

http://www.bootdisk.com.

After booting to a command prompt with CD-ROM support, see if the drive can read your Windows CD. If you get an error message here, then the drive is bad. If it works, then you have a Windows problem.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[cutiepyie]

Cdogg,
I have tried to use a bootable CD installation disc and have used F12 to set boot menu to boot from CD/DVD drive but system just ignores disc in drive and boots from HDD right to Windows!

The following is from Advanced System Information - Error Log :

Friday, October 06, 2006 Service Control Manager The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service depends on the AFD Networking Support Environment service which failed to start because of the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

Friday, October 06, 2006 Cdrom The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block.

I do NOT know what the above line means?

Does the above tell you anything?

Tnx again, Cin

 

[tf1]

It virtually confirms that it is the drive with the fault. Drives are now extremely cheap - even a dual layer DVD RW with Lightscribe can be had for around £23.


Regards: tf1