Toshiba satellite not recognizing cd?

[adamk1]

Hello, I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop, probably a few years old now, and have never had any problems. Last night I was making cd's and it was fine, have done it heaps of times before but all of a sudden it doesn't recognize any cd I put in the optical drive at all. My OS is Vista, can anyone help? I checked in device manager and it said I have the latest drivers, but it just wont recognize any cd at all......

 

[Collie147]

It could be that your CD drive is kaputt, happens a lot to laptops around 3-4 years old and older. Is it giving an error message perhaps? Go to the toshiba website and get updated drivers there (stick in your laptop model and it should give you the most up to date drivers) then try a CD lense cleaner, if that still doesnt work I'm afraid it probably is gone. New slimline IDE DVD drives can be expensive but you should be able to pick one up for cheap enough, or a decent second hand one for under 20 quid. I'd also check your event manager in control panel -> admin tools and if that doesnt work try test burning a CD (use the test burn, normally there is an option for it) and it'll give you an error message, google it and it'll tell ya.

 

[RetiredChief]

Agree with collie147, try a lens cleaner first. If that fixes it, start looking for a replacement drive. Cost should be approx $40 -> $50

Note - May laptops the DVD-RW drive can be removed by removing one screw - BUT some require more dissasembly. Both my tosibia's it was just a matter of removing one screw.

Next try pulling it out and putting it back in. While you have it out verify the interface - most probably (based on age) it is IDE (PATA) which are getting harder to find. My Tosibia A205 takes a pata DVD drive (Replaced it with a Blu-ray Rom/DVD-RW for $100. My Tosibia A305 takes a SATA DVD drive, also replaced - $100 BUT had to order from Taiwan (They wanted $200 in the states, way over priced as no real difference in cost between PATA and SATA).

A final, but not as good, recommendation is to get a slimline external - Aprrox $50

Prices are in US dollors