JeremyGStein
asked on
CD-R drive on XP can't read CDs
I have a Philips PCRW804 CD-RW drive. I just added it to my HP Pavilion 310n running Windows XP Home.
It shows up as drive F, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm not even trying to write to CDs yet -- I just want to be able to read!
When I put a normal CD in the drive, the "disc in" LED flashes and I can hear it starting to read it and then stopping about 5 times. Then the LEDs stay off. When I go to the F drive, it shows up as empty.
It shows up as drive F, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm not even trying to write to CDs yet -- I just want to be able to read!
When I put a normal CD in the drive, the "disc in" LED flashes and I can hear it starting to read it and then stopping about 5 times. Then the LEDs stay off. When I go to the F drive, it shows up as empty.
Is this a new drive or old? If it is an old drive it may need to be cleaned, with an optical drive cleaner to remove the dust on the lens.
what jumper config did you use... HP connects their devices as CS (cable select), you can try your CD Writer as CS.. or rejumper the original CD as SL (slave), and the CD Writer as MA (master)
here's a dumb question. did you install the latest drivers for it? or did you let windows plug n' pray do it for you?
ASKER
To Snowguy: This drive is a couple years old. I moved it from my old 98 machine to my XP machine. It worked on the 98 machine.
To oldgreyguy: I tried a number of configurations, including CS for both drives and then the CD Writer as master. Pretty much the same results in each case.
To night monkey: I looked for the latest drivers, but couldn't find them. When I asked Philips, they said it uses the default drivers in XP.
To oldgreyguy: I tried a number of configurations, including CS for both drives and then the CD Writer as master. Pretty much the same results in each case.
To night monkey: I looked for the latest drivers, but couldn't find them. When I asked Philips, they said it uses the default drivers in XP.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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as old as the drive is the heads might be out of alignment. Does your old CD drive work fine?
Maybe it isn't the drive. Maybe it's the CD itself. I got AOpen 4012, it reads most of the CD that I inserted, but sometimes don't. It turned out that the CD is just somehow fried, track 0 unreadable, stuff like that.
The moral is: check everything :)
The moral is: check everything :)
ASKER
I'm an idiot.
I had purchased this CD-RW drive for my old (Win 95) computer. It had worked fine. It was only a few months later when that computer died on me -- it started freezing up periodically for no reason. I had thought it might be the power supply or fan, but it was old enough that I decided to just get a new machine. I hadn't wanted to lose the money I spent on the CD-RW drive, so I opted for a machine without a built-in CD-RW so that I could pull mine out of the old machine and reuse it.
Now, on to the new (XP) machine... I played with the CD-RW drive a little more after reading your suggestions. When I couldn't make any progress, I just left the CD-RW drive in the machine while I waited for new ideas. While the drive was in the machine, over the next couple of days it started freezing up on me -- exactly what had happened to my old machine. I took out the CD-RW drive, and everything was fine again.
It appears that the problem is simply that the CD-RW drive is toasted. And worse than that -- I threw out my old machine because of it... AND SAVED THE ONE BROKEN COMPONENT!
oldgreyguy was the closest to saying that the CD-RW drive was just broken (and he did say "if it was working just prior to the move"), so I'm giving him the points.
Thanks for all your help and suggestions!
I had purchased this CD-RW drive for my old (Win 95) computer. It had worked fine. It was only a few months later when that computer died on me -- it started freezing up periodically for no reason. I had thought it might be the power supply or fan, but it was old enough that I decided to just get a new machine. I hadn't wanted to lose the money I spent on the CD-RW drive, so I opted for a machine without a built-in CD-RW so that I could pull mine out of the old machine and reuse it.
Now, on to the new (XP) machine... I played with the CD-RW drive a little more after reading your suggestions. When I couldn't make any progress, I just left the CD-RW drive in the machine while I waited for new ideas. While the drive was in the machine, over the next couple of days it started freezing up on me -- exactly what had happened to my old machine. I took out the CD-RW drive, and everything was fine again.
It appears that the problem is simply that the CD-RW drive is toasted. And worse than that -- I threw out my old machine because of it... AND SAVED THE ONE BROKEN COMPONENT!
oldgreyguy was the closest to saying that the CD-RW drive was just broken (and he did say "if it was working just prior to the move"), so I'm giving him the points.
Thanks for all your help and suggestions!
Don'tcha just hate technology sometimes.... go good and yet so irritating........... glad you got the issue resolved... sounds like the way I do it sometimes.
thanks for stopping by EE
bill
thanks for stopping by EE
bill