All is well again (an HP tech support story)...

Finally, after a little time...I've got a fully functional DVD drive again!

You might be able to find a buried thread about it somewhere, but long story short: my nc8430's original DVD drive died about a month ago. Indeed a sad day, as it was the first time I've had a problem with this laptop that wasn't my own fault.

Anyway, moving on...I contact HP tech and after a little troubleshooting, they declare the DVD drive dead and ship out a new one. Three days later, it was in my hands. A few days after that, I installed it. The drive was a brand new drive, made in Feb of 2007. The only problem with the replacement: any time it was being used, there was an EXTREMELY piercing high-pitched wine and I couldn't use the drive if I was in the same room.

Okay, it happens...so I call HP again. They gave me the workaround for a little while, as I had just gotten my drive replaced...and I finally told them I everything I did with my HP DVD drive that failed worked when I repeated the same step on a Dell Latitude machine.

They finally decided to ship me a replacement drive...my laptops 3rd drive. A little annoyed by now, but at least HP was working to fix the issue. So I got the drive a few days ago and installed it tonight...it's an LG combo drive that was manufactured in May of 2005. Yes, the drive is older than my laptop. But, it works flawlessly! There's a whine that happens when the drive spins up, but that's it! The drive doesn't violently vibrate like my 2nd drive did, and it's pretty quiet compared to either of the earlier two drives. It's built a little more solidly, and the tray (when extended) isn't loose at all.

So yeah, I thought I'd share this as (for once) there's a happy ending to a computer problem!

 

Glad it all worked out, Greg. What a pain!

 

That drives a DVD writer, right?

Considering the age, I'd be very worried about the drive being USED or refurbished.

 

I've had a so so experience with HP support.

GF has a nc8230. The speakers weren't working correctly (they were working, just going out at times) along with some LEDs on the keyboard. We send it back in one of their boxes. It comes back about a week later. This time the speakers don't work at all, the keyboard is bulging in the middle and the case isn't snapped back together in spots.

So we call them up again, they overnight another box and we ship it back to them. Week later, everything is working great. I guess 2nd time is the charm.

 

Yup...DVD writer. And it certainly doesn't look used, so I'm guessing this is just in a stockpile of standby replacements for people with problems like mine. I'm not complaining, as long as the drive works.