Troubleshooting: My CD Drives won't work. Please help.

[Az]

So here's the deal. In about two weeks, a person will come, and install broadband at my house, including an external modem, filtres for the noise on the phone lines, and, as it seems, some drivers on my computer. ( or something ).

In any case, they'll bring a CD to install it. The problem is, that my CD-ROM drive doesn't work. It's been that way for a week now, my CD has trouble finding CDs. The yellow LED shines for a while, and then dies off. Another intersting thing is that my Stereo has the same problem for months now, but being lazy, I didn't bother to do anything about it, and so it came back and bit me in the ass.

I've bought one of those things that clean drivers, a compact disk that has these hairs on its back, I guess to remove dust from the laser lense, or something. In any case, it didn't work, my CD driver didn't recognize the disk, and after turning it a couple of times ( I know that, since the CD itself changed position, when I wanted to take it out ). Same story with the stereo. "No Disk".

Why does this happen? What can I do about it?

Thanks in advance.

[Urban Ranger]

Should be a hardware problem.

Try the cleaning disc again. Your CD-ROM drive doesn't recognise the disc because there is no recognisable info on it, but the disc should be spinning around inside, which is how it cleans the lens.

After cleaning, if it doesn't work, try hacking off your CD-ROM drive from the Device Manager and reboot. After it finds the device, try it again.

If none of these works, you might need to buy a new drive.

[Az]

btw, The cleaning disk is a regular CD with these hair on, right?

[Az]

OK, weird. I pressed remove on the CD in the device manager, it was gone, I restarted the computer, and it's back there.

Of course, nothing changed, performance-wise.

[OmniDude]

Based on the fact that both drives have the same problem and cleaning doesn't work, I'd say that the problem's definately Hardware.

So borrow a working drive from someone, swap it with the defect one and if that works, well, buy a new drive and start pondering what it is in your home that kills CD-drives.

One thing to note here is that while CD-cleaners will wipe off most dust grains, they are not very effective against "sticky dust".
I had a stereo in my kitchen once and had no effective ventilation above the stove, and that eventually knocked out the cd-drive. I took the damned thing apart, wiped the lens gently with a [cotton-tipped stick you normally use to clean your ears with] dipped in isopropyl alcohol, put it back together again and it worked again....for about 2 months.

So if you live in a studio apartment and use a lot of oil in your cooking, you might be onto a cause....

[Eli]

I have a very similar problem with my CDRW for more than a year now. But being lazy, I do nothing about it.

[Az]

There is plenty of dust in my room, but nothing oily, or stuff like that.


It IS generally humid here, though.

[OmniDude]

*Sigh*
All this new cheapo super-speed/capacity hardware **** that gives up if you as much as throw a stern look in its general direction. I'm getting encreasingly reluctant about hardware upgrades for every year that passes. You know what you've got and all that.
Ah, bring back the fond memories the days of the 8" 160K diskette. Doesn't read? Wipe the sucker off with your sleeve and you'd be all right.......sheesh, I'm gettin' old....

[OmniDude]

*pling* BOT, high humidity is the Archenemy (TM) of electronics, but most thing are built with solid tolerances and I 'd expect other HW errors.
However, Haifa is a coastal city, right? Seaside wind here in Denmark often carry with it a sticky kind of moisture. The Mediterranean is not as salt and I seem to remember that the stickyness is connected with salt, but it could still be an issue, if you're not living at least 500 m. inland?

[Zopperoni]

Right, if cleaning the disk drives doesn't work, try the following:

a) Check the connectivity: see if all cables are fastened (both the power cable and the IDE cable).
b) Clean the exterior of the drives, take a cloth and wipe dust and dirt that may be on it.
c) Test the machine with working drives from someone else.
d) Test the machine with a working IDE cable from someone else.
e) Take your drives with your IDE cable to a computer vendor and see if they can test them on their test PCs.

I hope you'll find a solution to your problem.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by OmniDude
Ah, bring back the fond memories the days of the 8" 160K diskette. Doesn't read? Wipe the sucker off with your sleeve and you'd be all right.......sheesh, I'm gettin' old....

I am old too. I still remember the paper tapes and audio casette tapes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by OmniDude
However, Haifa is a coastal city, right? Seaside wind here in Denmark often carry with it a sticky kind of moisture. The Mediterranean is not as salt and I seem to remember that the stickyness is connected with salt, but it could still be an issue, if you're not living at least 500 m. inland?

It is possible, though not likely unless you live right next to the sea. Here in Hong Kong, we have killer humidity all throughout the summer and our computers don't do too shabby.

Salt is generally bad to metal, particularly iron, but doesn't do much to glass and plastic.

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger




I am old too. I still remember the paper tapes and audio casette tapes.

Punch cards and "rabbit" speedy cassette tape speed
boosters

[Urban Ranger]

Oh yeah, punch cards too. What fun.

[DaShi]

Did you try jamming a pencil in there and seeing what you can scrape out?