Why is my optical drive so fickle?

This has been going on for a while now. It will read some discs just fine, others not so much. It seems to almost always work with game discs, but when it comes to movies it rarely works anymore. As a matter of fact, I've been attempting to rip some of my personal DVD collection since yesterday, and only 1 out of about 30 will even show up under My Computer("Guantanamero"). With the rest the drive just makes 'reading' sounds for a good minute or two, then nothing. Doesn't matter whether the discs are brand new or not.

I tried cleaning the drive a while back but it didn't make a difference. Maybe I'll do it again. I can only assume the drive must be failing, since it seems to have gotten progressively worse.

Also I should point out that it still burns CDs and DVDs perfectly fine. Ideas, anyone?

 

In Device Manager, goto IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, and check the Current Drive Mode for the ATAPI CD-ROM under the respective ATA/IDE Channel.

 

I have 4 options branching off from IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and nowhere do I see anything about a Current Drive Mode. Forgot to mention I'm on Vista 64-bit. Should I just uninstall the driver and reboot?

 

Right-Click and go into the properties of each channel, and check for the drive mode. (I don't know if it is different for x64)
You should see something like this.

 

OK, mine shows exactly the same as your screen cap. Disable DMA?

 

No, don't disable DMA. The drivers are fine. Then either it is a software you installed that is creating problems for the ODD or the problems lies within the burner or the DVDs.

 

Look in the registry and see if you have any upper filter and lower filter entries. (That is one of many discussions on the subject).

The next test would be to be run your your computer of a Linux Live CD. If that has problems then it would point to a hardware problem. If Linux runs fine then it points to some software problem.

John

 

No, I don't have those filters in my registry. Do you think I should add them?

edit - Also, something I think might be worth mentioning is that if I have a disc in my drive at boot-up, say, Mass Effect, my computer hangs while it reads the disc seemingly indefinitely, but when I push the eject button and the disc pops out it boots up immediately. And no, the disc drive is not before the HDD in BIOS.

 

If having a disc in the drive causes a boot problem then it looks like it is a hardware problem. Although the optical drive is not first in the boot order, the computer still wants to know what is there.

You could try cleaning the lens again. Otherwise, replacement is probably the best course of action. The small optical drives are one of the least durable components. It won't help if you are in a dusty environment.

John

 

Hm. It plays, rips, and burns CDs just fine. Games are no problem. Neither is burning DVDs, yet, for some reason it just doesn't want to read them. This is really annoying.

 

OS: Clean Install possible..??