Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up

Subject: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 07:29 PM

When I put a disc in my PC, which runs Windows XP, normally autoplay opens up and asks me what I want to do with it; and if I shut that down and open up My Computer, the drive is indicated with an icon for the particular disc, and when I open that up, it gives me a menu of things to do, including "play".

But all of a sudden, when I put a disc in, nothing happens. When I go to My Computer the CD drive says "Audio CD" or the name of the DVD, but when I open the menu, there is no "play". However when I open up the drive itself, the files are there, and when I click on these they work normally.

However, if I leave the disc in, and reboot, when the PC starts again, the autoplay does seem to work, and when I open the disc's menu, "play" is there, and working OK.

I've tried doing a system restore, and it worked OK for a bit, and then didn't any more.

What's Up Doc? Does any of this make sense to anyone who can suggest what is going wrong, and how to fix it? I have a horrible feeling it may be another occasion for reintstalling Windows, which I hate doing because I always seem to lose something.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: open mike
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 08:17 PM

I HAVE SIMILAR PROBS.
when i put a blank disc in,
it says it can't find the disc..
or it says put in another disc..

i got an external cd/dvd drive unit
thinking that would help, but it
caused crashing, apparently due
to conflicting programs...

hope you are able to bet yours
to come around...

ad below is for dvd drive troubleshooting...

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:50 AM

I'm inclined not to trust those ads that pop up for free programs that will fix things on the computer.

Sooner or later generally a distress flare on the Mudcat gets a response from someone who can steer you to shore.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 09:43 AM

You can set the standard response to each of your media drives on the computer. I wonder if your computer has somehow "forgotten" waht you want it to usually do. This could have changed if you installed a new device, etc. I have some that don't always pop up the little dialog box like they used to; probably operator error, and this is how I would go in to fix it:

Start -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer-> My Computer -> right over the drive, click on the Properties line. Click the Autoplay tab.

In the drop down menu you can choose the action (did you put in a mixed data disk, or a music CD or a DVD movie?) and then either tell it to prompt you each time (a dialog box pops up and asks if you want to open it with a program or to view the contents in WinExplorer) or tell it to automatically do something, i.e., mixed content, open using WinExplorer, or a music CD, to open in Windows Media Player). Click to apply, or choose to toggle the radio button to always ask each time the device is activated.

Does this help?

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 12:43 PM

I've had several problems with CD/DVD drives over the years.

It's always worth trying the CD Gone patch - http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/CDgone-file8.html - which amends your computer's registry without any seeming harm (at least, I've never discovered any).

If that doesn't work, then check to see if the drive appears under Device Manager. If it does not, hunt down its drivers and reinstall them.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:28 PM

Thanks for the suggestion Stilly River - but I've tried that and it ought to solve the problem, but in fact it doesn't do the trick.

And the drive does show up on Device Manager, and the driver is OK according to Windows.

Haven't tried the CD Gone Patch yet, but I probably will, and I'll report back either way.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 05:59 AM

Any more ideas from anyone?

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 09:36 AM

The last time this happened to me it was caused by a conflict between two different CD-burning programmes, so you might want to uninstal these first of all, re-boot and see if that makes a difference.

If nothing's changed, open Device Manager (by right-clicking, My Computer, Properties, and Hardware.

Look down the list and find and open IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Open the first one of the Secondary IDE Channels (which is usually the one linked to the CD drive, click on Advanced Settings and check the Current Transfer Mode under Device 0 is set to Ultra DMA Mode 2. If its set to PIO then try to set it to Ultra DMA Mode 2. (If you can do this, then re-boot and see if that's solved the problem.) If the computer doesn't allow you to do this, then click on Drivers and see if you are able to roll-back the driver. If not, then you're going to have to uninstal the driver.

However, before you do this, create a System Restore point by using the System Restore Wizard. Then uninstall the driver for the Secondary Channel. Re-boot your computer. The process should start the new hardware recognition system which in turn will reinstal the CD drive. It's not as risky as it sounds since you haven't actually deleted the driver and have a restore point.

This was the only way I could get my own CD drive recognised the last time it disappeared.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 02:53 PM

Thanks Geoff. I've just tried out your suggestion, and it gave my Current Transfer Mode as Ultra Mode 4, with no way of changing that.

True enough I have recently been playing around with CD-burning programs, because I've got a new turntable for transferring Vinyl to other formats, and I did have a couple of programs set up for that. But the problem didn't arise immediately - and I've now removed all the programs I'd installed, except the one I have decided works best. And I removed that as well, to see if it made any difference to this problem, and it didn't seem to.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Peace
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 02:56 PM

McG of H: Have you messages JiC?

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 03:11 PM

"McG of H: Have you messages JiC? " ???

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Peace
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 03:13 PM

John in Kansas

He's a computer whiz.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 03:20 PM

Hmm,

Then I'd suggest uninstalling the Secondary Controller's driver and re-booting. If that doesn't work, the CD drive might simply be kaput!

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Bernard
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 03:39 PM

Micro$shaft issued a patch to correct it some years ago. Not sure where they hide it these days, but if you PM your email address (in case I can't find it!) I'll send it to you.

It's called 'autofix.exe', strangely enough! Officially it's the 'autoplay repair wizard'... a mere 80k in size.

As it's an exe, I'll change the extension to .txt to try to fool the virus scanners...

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 06:00 PM

That looked promising. I googled autofix.exe, and downloaded from Microsoft, and asked oit to domits stuff. It identified there were "problems" with an option to "repair", so I clicked that and it said it was repaired. But it wasn't. In fact now the drive doesn't play CDs either.

A reinstall of Windows seems likely to be my best option. If that doesn't work then I suppose it must be the drive itself.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Andrez
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 06:40 PM

So just wondering do you have a spare PC lying around or a friend with the same sort of thing that you can swap the drive into and test to double check before you go out and buy a new one?

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 07:02 PM

Might try that. But I doubt if the problem is in the drive as such, but more likely somewhere in the PC registry.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 01:09 PM

You haven't mentioned whether you've tried uninstalling the Secondary Controller's driver. If you haven't tried that, then give it a go. Your machine's problem has almost certainly nothing to do with the CD drive's autoplay function.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 01:59 PM

...uninstalling the Secondary Controller's driver.

What's that mean? And how do I go about doing that?

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:04 PM

See my detailed message above.

Where I mentioned how to roll back the driver you'll also see the option to uninstall it.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:14 PM

I suppose I should know what a Secondary Driver is, but I don't. Bot to worry though.

Anyway, I've just spent the evening reinstalling Windows, and that seems to have sorted things out. And I seem to have got back the stuff I need, and got rid of the stuff I don't need.

Subject: RE: Tech: My CD/DVD drive is acting up
From: fumblefingers
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 11:23 PM

I've had CD/DVD drives that couldn't find the disk because the IR (infrared) sensor was dirty. The fix involved taking the thing apart and cleaning the sensor with a Q-Tip. That was long ago, so it may not even be possible any more.