Laptop CD drive problems! cant boot from it

I've got a friends Toshiba Satellite Pro A120, it was running very slow so I said I'd do the usual for him. Backup all his documents then reinstall windows. not so simple!
Firstly, trying to boot from CD so I can boot into Ubuntu or reinstall windows. Took me long enough to work out I had to press DEL/ESC to get into the BIOS, but once I set it to boot from CD (and had a bootable CD in the drive), it just kept booting from the HDD. Every so often I would get an error saying
"Media test failure - check cable"
or something similar, theres lots on the internet about that. I think its something to do with if the boot order has CD first then it has LAN as 2nd.

Managed to boot Ubuntu from pendrive. Trying to copy his documents over to my external drive but was copying really REALLY slow (like 1MB/s) and kept getting I/O errors on a few files. I can't run HDD diagnostic software as I can't boot from CD (could get the Ultimate Boot CD onto a USB stick though if anyone thinks it could help?).

In windows, the CD drive only reads real CDs (like audio and DVDs, not CDRs or DVDRs). does this mean a failing drive? what puzzles me more though, is that I switched the CD drive with a working CD drive from another laptop and windows now doesnt recognise this new CD drive at all! When Putting a bootable CD in this new CD drive it still boots from HDD (not recognising the CD drive at all). The BIOS is a bit useless and doesnt show detected drives....
Also, booting Ubuntu from pendrive, with the original CD drive, it only reads real CDs and DVDs and all copied ones are seen as blank discs, and replacing the CD drive with a known working one in Ubuntu means its not recognised at all (so its not windows driver problems).

When I started messing around with it I do remember windows saying the time had been reset, so I set the time properly, then it did the same again i think. A flat CMOS battery couldnt be responsible for this?

Is the motherboard, and specifically the IDE controller or one of the ports broken, or am I doing something stupid? I'm tempted to just install Ubuntu by USB and tell him not to bother with CDs anymore ;^)

Any suggestions or comments would be much much appreciated!

Thanks,
Dan Gent

 

When I read that you can read 'real' CD's but not DVD's (how about CD-R or CD-RW disks?), this makes me think that the laser in the drive is weak, which may mean it's just dirty. Use one of those CD cleaning disks or just take a cotton swab, dampen it with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) give the laser a cleaning and then let it air dry or dry it with a clean swab. This may clear up the problem.

Another point is that a slow computer may just need a tune up and not have to be formatted and re-loaded. Did you think of just eliminating junk files (disk clean up), doing a good virus and trojan sweep, getting rid of unneeded background programs and top it off by adding as much RAM as your friend can afford? Unless there are real serious problems, this tune up might get back some of the lost speed and not risk losing files or settings. Think about it.

- Good Luck.

 

to explain better, real as in not DVDR or CDRs. properly made discs not burned ones. I've never tried any of those CD cleaning kits but if you say they work then i'll give it a go. If i can get this drive to read CDRs then i might not need to worry about switching the CD drive as it should boot. Thats good advice, very good advice. Posted this up on a few forums and thats definitely the best advice i've got.
leave it to dry by leaving the tray ejected?

this windows install is about four years old i think and i'm not sure how long (or how properly) there is antivirus software on there. loads of driver problems, she mentioned that virus "win pro antivirus" popping up as well. It'll take me less than 2 hours to reinstall windows and then it'll run like new and i can set it up properly. If you saw the state of it you'd agree it was the easier option! ;^)
More RAM is definitely the next step though if I get this sorted.

Thanks for the help,
Dan