argh! laptop dvd drive won't read DVDs anymore

LewieP

my housemate has a "Fujitsu Siemens amilo L7320GW" laptop, it is just out of warranty, and for some reason, it has recently stopped reading any DVDs, this is burnt and retail, data video or game. It still reads all kinds of CDs ok.

It has a NEC ND-6750A drive, and we have updated it to the most recent firmware (2.61, from here) and it has seemed to do nothing.

There has been a seemingly unrelated issue of the screws on the bottom of the case have been falling out, which has been 'remedied' with some tape, is it possible that this is causing a hardware problem? My first instinct was no, because if it was, I would have guessed it would have broke all together, but as I said it is reading CDs fine.

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.

LewieP

I hate to bump this for no good reason, but it is pretty urgent.

I'd Fuck Chuck Lidell Up

I've had problems with this before

usually with ps2s

the drive becomes unaligned with the laser and it won't read ps2 games it will play ps1 games.

or it will take the old, wider disks, it won't take the blue skinny ones

so while i can't explain why you have the problem i can say you aren't alone in it and it probably has a lot to do with the screws falling out

AtomBomb

I've worked with a lot of used consoles and optical drives, so while this is based on actual experience, the "science" behind it might be bullshit. It seems like many drives will start to fail by being unable to read a specific type of disc. For PS2's, it might be that it can't read blue discs, or silver discs, or PS1 discs, or music CD's. It seems that the laser has to focus to different points to read each type, and sometimes the unit gets out of focus for one type without really affecting the other types. However, it's usually a sign that the drive is going to get less and less reliable. Anyway, on the original PS2's, I've successfully fixed this issue a few times by adjusting a little focus gear-thingy on the lens mechanism. Some models do not have this adjustment. Most computer optical drives don't seem to have easily accessible adjustments either. There's also a decent chance that you'll screw up the focus on other types of media, or completely kill it.

I would suggest cleaning the lens gently with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol. The screws falling out makes me think the laptop hasn't lead a sheltered life, and whatever was causing that could have knocked the laser out of alignment. I was considering upgrading my laptop drive to a DVD-RW (the current one's a combo: CD-RW but only reads DVD's) and newegg had a couple for about $50.

Pojaco

Both NEC drives I've owned have done this same thing after a certain amount of time, but none of my other drives have. I say buy a new one.