Optical Drive problems

[Tommy Vercetti]

Recently my optical drive has been acting very strange. It seems to be selective in what discs it acknowledges and it won't burn CDs. When I tried to use my internal drive that has a burner and worked before I got this error





I bought an external optical drive and it STILL won't burn discs and yes it has a burner on it. Is it possible this is a software problem and not a hardware issue?

 

[GoodGame]

The first suggestion is to see if the optical drive maker has released a driver update since you last installed one. It is possible that something like an OS update or OS issue may be creating driver problems. Related to that see if anyone with your drive is having similar problems to you with a Google search---chances are someone might have posted a solution/work-a-around.

The second suggestion is to verify the internal physical connection of the drive to be sure it hasn't come loose any.

If the optical drive is acting funny regularly, I suggest not putting any favorite disks into it until you straighten out the issue or replace the drive. There's potential for a faulty drive to chew up discs.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

Well I did try an external drive with no luck. Unless I just am that unlucky and got a defective external drive. I bought this cheap external drive off Amazon for around 26 dollars. It has two USB plugs one for power supply and one for the connection, I plugged them into a USB hub with two other devices. (my laptop only has two ports) I tried to fix the driver and it said it was up to date.

 

[GoodGame]

It is usually iffy to trust Windows to determine if the the driver is up-to-date. Your best bet is to look up the exact model number of the drive through your Control Panel or a third-party program (like Speccy) and search the manufacturer's website with that info. It might also help to update the BIOS of your computer's motherboard and related components like maybe the USB drivers for your motherboard. Just a friendly warning---BIOS updates have to be done carefully or they can screw up the motherboard.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

I fixed the problem getting my external optical drive to work. Turns out I had too much running off my USB Hub. I plugged the USB power plug into the USB to AC adapter from my digital camera (improvised fix for now) and it WORKED! I also used third party CD Burning software.

 

[GoodGame]

Congrats.

If you have a drive faceplate for your desktop case, it would probably not hurt to disconnect and remove the dysfunctional internal optical drive since it does draw a small amount of power.