Disc Drive Skipping?

[lordaardvark2]

Greetings, all!

I've got a strange one here. The stock disc drive in my friend's Latitude d630 appears to be skipping during playback. However, I was able to rip a track from a working CD, and although the track skipped when played off the CD, it played fine from the hard drive.

What in the world could be causing this? Perhaps an issue with the drive's cache? I can get a new drive for as little as $9, but wanted to see if y'all knew of any fixes I could try.

The drive is a Tsstcorp cdrwdvd tsl462d.

Thanks!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Skipping could be caused by a faulty/sticking mechanism which moves the laser across the the disc.

 

[synphul]

You could try running a disc drive cleaning disc in it. They're usually similar to a cd/dvd but with tiny brushes on the read surface designed to gently brush any dust off the optical head. It may or may not help but I've had disc read issues before in various machines and a cleaner has helped several of them.

 

[lordaardvark2]

Skipping could be caused by a faulty/sticking mechanism which moves the laser across the the disc.

I replaced the drive and the problem persisted. I'd say the probability of the second drive having the same mechanical issue is pretty slim. Any other suggestions?

 

[synphul]

Have you tried ripping the track from the cd that's skipping, burning it to a new physical blank disc (in pristine condition) and then playing it back? It could be that particular disc. I've had that happen.

 

[lordaardvark2]

Have you tried ripping the track from the cd that's skipping, burning it to a new physical blank disc (in pristine condition) and then playing it back? It could be that particular disc. I've had that happen.

I haven't tried the burning part, but the ripping part worked. Why on earth would the drive be able to rip cleanly but not just play it cleanly? Again, the system skips when playing live from the disc but doesn't skip when the tracks are ripped and played from the HDD. That's what's blowing my mind-- it makes no sense! If it were truly mechanical, wouldn't ripping suffer just as much as reading?!

 

[synphul]

I don't know exactly. I've had a few where the physical disc wasn't even necessarily scratched that poorly. It was able to copy the data intact. Burning it to a new physical disc, the new created disc did fine. Some sort of physical issue with that actual optics of the disc you're playing from. I've had it happen in some players and not others. For instance I have some store bought dvd's that play fine in the pc but fail to read in my playstation. Yet other home burnt discs play just fine in the playstation. Go figure.