Asus W3J+ - My DVD drive is not reading DVDs anymore

My Asus W3J laptop (my review here) comes with a removable DVD-RAM drive called TSSTcorp TS-L632D (according to the safely remove hardware tab). It can read CDs normally. And it was able to read DVDs and write CD/DVD perfectly until about a couple of months ago. Then I wanted to install Ubuntu so I tried to burn the ISO to CD and for the life of me it wouldn't. Nero would say successful but when I insert the CD it showed up as an empty CD. In the end I had to get a friend to do it for me.

Today I wanted to use my new WS monitor and watch a DVD, so I put in the movie into my DVD drive and I can hear the drive spin up and then spin down pretty quickly. And then it keeps quiet. Apparently the drive is not reading the DVD. Now the DVD worked fine on another PC and it could be read on my DVD player, so it's not the disk's problem. In any case I tried another DVD with same results. Keep in mind it still reads CDs fine.

Fearing I was bit by Starforce I ran the driver removal utility (although I don't think I even had Starforce), but with no luck. I do have Dameon Tools installed but I've had that installed since last year when DVDs were fine.

Does anyone have a solution? Thanks!

 

Start by going into Device Manager and uninstalling the CD / DVD drive and the secondary IDE channel and rebooting. This will force redetection of the hardware and should clear any problems in Windows.

If that doesn't fix the problem then the ODD probably needs replacing. If you are out of warranty then the TS-L632D is a standard 1/2" notebook optical drive.

John

 

Sorry to hear about your problem, you're not the only one with this problem regarding the W3J. Its been discussed here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=124739&highlight=w3j

I have that exact problem that you've mentioned. I am still under warranty and called Asus today. They told me that they will issue me a RMA number within 24 hrs with further instructions on how to get the problem fixed. I read that other forum members only needed to send in their drives for repair. You can go ahead and read the rest. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks I will call. Do you have the US number and hours? I only see the Canadian ones in that thread.

Thanks

 

Technical Support

Notebook Support:
Email: http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx
Notebook ONLY Hotline: 1-888-678-3688
Available 24 hours (except holidays)

~ Brett

 

I called them up and they said I should just head on over to their office in Fremont since I live in San Jose. Will do that this week...

Wonder what the problem is anyway...

 

Lucky that you live close by. They've been utterly unhelpful on the phone for the same problem, it hurts to say it, but even Dell has better quality customer service than what I've received so far. I call them on Saturday and they said I would receive the RMA information within 24 hours, but when I checked my e-mails on Monday night, nothing was there from them. I waited another day and called yesterday, again they said I should receive the information quickly but I didn't get anything today. Finally I called them this evening and the person I spoke to seemed confused about my request, but at least promised that I would receive the RMA by tonight. I just hope I do, tomorrow I'm out of the city at a cottage and don't want to spend a fortune on my cell bill. If I don't have something by Friday, I'm definitely asking to speak to a manager or someone in charge at Asus.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation. I received my RMA # from Asus (US) today, just about 24hrs after I called. I went down to the Fedex and they bubbled wrap the drive and placed it in bubbled enveloped. Standard overnight shipping all paid for by Asus.

 

Nice to hear that. I'm sure it'll get solved quickly enough, I'm just a little frustrated with all the waiting.