Problems with LG GSA-2166D USB external CD burner

[spdragoo]

OK, I'm having some issues with my external CD burner. This was a model I bought some years back, as the DVD burner on my old PC wasn't working so well. Unfortunately, it's not working right anymore. The tray button works fine, the light comes on, & my PC (Windows 7 Professional 64-bit) recognizes the drive...but any disc I put in (blank, burned, even movie discs) don't show up. Windows & any apps (including Windows Media Player) just say to insert a disc, even if there's one in the tray.

I have the "most recent" driver (2009) from the LG website. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly when the problem occurred, as it happened sometime well before my recent OS reinstall (when I switched from HDD to SSD), so I have no idea whether it's the drive simply starting to go belly-up, a lack of support for it in Windows 7 (even though it had worked in the past), or even a "patch conflict issue" (happened back in the Windows XP days with an old Windows 98 16-bit program, & SP2 or SP3 made XP unable to use it anymore).

Is it even worth it to try to track down the problem, or just chuck it & start over?

 

[boosted1g]

Burners are so cheap now days.

If this is a desktop you can get a modern burner for less then $20 and they are very simple to install. You just remove the side covers, put the screws into the side to hold it in place, then the sata cable goes from dvd-drive to motherboard, and connect a power cable from power supply.

 

[spdragoo]

Already have an internal one to go with the newer build (this is an external that I bought when the old PC's internal burner was also going bad). However, I'm thinking that it's probably time to just chuck it. It's easily 6 years old, if not older, & I strongly suspect that it just isn't going to read any discs anymore.