Asus M50 DVD drive problem

I have an M50 as the title suggests. Just today I noticed that I cannot play DVD's on my laptop any longer. I do not know when exactly this happened as I don't often play DVD's on here however I've always been able to.

I've tried going thru control panel/systems and uninstalling everything, reboot and let Windows try to fix itself however I still have trouble.

If I put in a software CD (install CD from wireless mouse and keyboard) everything seems fine

If I put in a DVD video (X-Men, Star Wars, etc)...nothing

If I put in a DVD game disc (Starcraft 2 install disc)...nothing

Am I going to have to shell out for a new drive or is this maybe something internal? I have recently replaced my video card (see link to forum post below) but I could have sworn I've watched movies on here since then.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/521708-asus-m50s-graphics-card-problem-2.html

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks all

 

If it's only having trouble with DVDs, it suggests a physical problem with the drive. You can try booting off of a DVD (like ubuntu for example), to see if it is a hardware problem. If it is, you can try flashing the firmware (if there's an update) from ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support- and go to notebooks->optical drive firmware. Otherwise you probably need to replace the drive.

 

Actually out of frustration I gave it a good blast of canned air and whatever it was that fixed it, at least for now. I'll probably have to put some cash away for if/when it finally does call it quits on me. Saving now for new LCD so the 50 or so bucks extra won't kill me.

Thanks all!

 

Oh nice. Probably a dirty lens then. Easy fix.

 

OK so I hate to bring up an old thread but I think the problems were just a warning sign.

I'm still having the problem occasionally with DVD drives. Not as bad as after my cleaning but still a problem at least once a day.

I need to change out the HD drive, its going bad as well (why does this all have to happen at once?) I was wanting to just get two birds with one stone and get a new DVD burner in this laptop if possible. I wasn't sure if anyone out there had experience switching out the drive on an M50SV.

Device manager describes the drive as - HL DT ST DVDRAM GSA - T20N. I Googled that and wasn't able to figure if it has a SATA connection or not so I don't know if I should look to buy an EXACT one of those or if I could get a slimline DVD drive from Newegg or whatever and just swap them out.

Any help would be appreciated as always! I hope these posts are helping others in addition to solving my own problems.

 

Can\'t re-format CD-RW on my HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20N - Club MyCE

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