Vaio F11 Blu Ray/DVD Drive Not Working

My model number is the VPCF112FX/B. This laptop came with a Blu Ray Player / DVDRW factory installed. Now, I must say I've never used this laptop to burn anything but audio CDs to play in my car and a few CD-Rs for file storage. No DVDs, but I'm assuming that works if it burns CDs. Also, I use VLC Player for all multimedia files, including DVD playback. Sony has Corel WinDVD bundled in to Windows 7 and I never did a clean install, although I probably should now. So I never even used WinDVD (except right when I got it and played my first DVD in it) until a few days ago when I borrowed City of God in Blu Ray from a friend to watch on this laptop. WinDVD crashes (Error message that says "WinDVD has stopped working....") when I try to play it. I had bought PowerDVD right after I bought the laptop also and the same thing happened in that program when I tried to play it (it doesn't crash, but it just stops loading and nothing happens; it did have me pick a region the first time I tried, but then nothing...). I tested out several regular DVD movies in both programs and the same thing happened, so it doesn't seem to be a Blu Ray problem. I've updated the drivers on the device, no change. The drive is the MATA BD-CMB UJ141AS. DVDs play fine in VLC Player, but WinDVD and PowerDVD crash while trying to play them. Obviously Blu Rays don't b/c they aren't supported in that software. When I tried updating the firmware for this device from the Sony website, I get an error that says "Target not found" after I run the executable firmware update (as an administrator). In all instances I described above, I checked in My Computer and the title and files show up in the G: Drive. I also ran a troubleshoot on the drive and nothing was detected as being wrong (surprise, surprise, but I thought I'd give it a try).

I'm out of ideas here. I've been scouring the web for the last 5 days trying to figure something out with no luck. Am I missing something that's right in my face? I have a lot of patience and I don't want to pay someone to look at this computer, but I'm about to start pulling my hair out at this point. Anyone got any ideas?

 

What about removing the BluRay drive from the list in Device Manager? When you restart, it will find the hardware again. Perhaps you'll be able to update the firmware after that?

Aside from restoring your computer to factory settings and attempting to play the movie, I think you've tried most options.

 

WinDVD BD (the latest one at that) does have issues playing some BD movies. I for one suffered your exact issue trying to play INDEPENDANCE DAY BD on WinDVD BD; it crashed itself silly and wouldn't even get to the stage of playing. It just crashed the moment it detected that disc.

That said, I have other BD movies and those play fine. Never tried DVD movies but I have burned my fair share of data DVDs on this machine without hiccups.

Now, your issue. I think the problem lies in the actual playback software.

I know Arcsoft have some good blu-ray playback software. I actually downloaded a full-feature (though time limited) trial and managed to get that playing INDEPENDANCE DAY without issue.

I think it was the TOTAL MEDIA THEATRE 5. Anyways, try it out. At the end of the day I doubt your actual hardware is damaged, unless you've been reckless with it (which I doubt, considering it's probably a very treasured item in your possesion...).

 

I just can't justify paying $100 to see if it helps the situation, especially when 2 programs that should work simply don't. It seems unlikely that Arcsoft would solve the problem. And I've always handled this laptop very gently, never dropped it or spilled anything on it, so I can't see why the hardware would be damaged, unless it has just simply degraded over time (but it's only been a year, so I can't see how that could be likely). I think I'm going to just do a clean install and pray that it fixes the problem, my warranty is already up with Sony, so they'd be no help even if I wanted to have them replace the drive. Anseio, I'll try your suggestion and if it doesn't work, time to clean install. I really need to do that anyway.

 

Also, I don't know if this is relevant or not: Device manager lists 2 devices under DVD/CD-ROM Drives.

1) bydcl nkl27812jsx SCSI CDrom Device
2) MATA BD-CMB UJ141AS

In My Computer, any DVD or Blu Ray I put in the drive shows up in the G: Drive and the D; Drive also shows up as a BD-Rom Device but never reads anything.

EDITED TO ADD: Removing both devices from Device Manger list and rebooting didn't work...

 

You said you're still in warranty, right?

Call Sony. You'll be walked through some troubleshooting and some allowing them to use your your lappy remotely, and you'll be sent a replacement drive.

I had put mine in an external enclosure, it got a power surge and that blew the BD Drive. Called Sony and the replacement was out in a few days.

 

One year warranty is already up. So that's a no go.

 

Know anybody willing to let you remove/swap ODD's to see if the problem follows the ODD or the laptop? Since you said this also happens on DVD's, I'd like to see how a different connection (external USB) or another machine works with it.

 

That caught my eye.
I'm assuming you have some optics drive emulator software on your machine. Something like Daemon or (the better / less bloated) CloneDrive. Uninstall whatever is emulating that drive and reboot. Then try playing your problematic BD again.

 

5ushiMonster, I wonder if that was the problem or not. I did a clean install of Windows 7 yesterday and everything works now. I did have Daemon installed in order to mount ISO's on occasion. I had planned on reinstalling it, but now I don't know if I should. It's a really convenient application to have. What do you think?

 

I can tell you that I've never had this problem. I use Virtual Clone Drive instead of Daemon, even though Daemon can mount more image types.

 

I also used SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive as it was the first to work under Win7 Beta.

At the moment I'm using DVDFab Virtual Drive: DVDFab Virtual Drive -- emulates up to 18 drives and works with both DVD and Blu-ray images.
One of the advantages is an exit button