Fruit Machine Chat

Afternoon all! I've got a problem with my laptop, and it's starting to get 'annoying' to say the least!

My DVD drive plays DVDs fine, with no jittering, loss of sound etc. So there's no problems there. However, when I want to install a game or browse a CD / DVD, it chugs for yonks and then says 'Please insert a Disk in Drive D:'.

Any ideas or pointers on where to get some help? I'd say it was just a knackered drive if it didn't play DVDs fine. (Plays music CDs fine, too!)

Grrr...

PS: It's a Sony DVD+-RW DW-D56A in a Dell Inspiron 9300 Lappy.

Take a look in [Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer]. Have a look at what error the driver is reporting for a better chance of a helpful diagnostic.

Sounds obvious, but have you tried a lense cleaner? I had a drive that would read cd's but not dvd's, a quick clean did the job.

Yeah thats usually all it takes, a quick clean and as good as new.

Are the CD's/DVD's you have trouble with all new release games/music/movies if so it could be that the drive is having trouble reading the media (latest type dye's).
If this is the case maybe a fireware flash would help.

You should find helpful info here http://forums.afterdawn.com/

But definatly try a laser clean first!

Good luck.

Thanks chaps, I cleaned it and it seems OK now. Easier than I thought...