CD drive won’t read discs

Folks, here is a question I received that I think is of ‘general benefit’ to all to know.

Q: Hi Tech Paul.
The disc player in my Dell Optiplex has started to ignore cds and dvds that I burned myself but still can play those that I purchased or rent. What’s going on? Do I need a new codec?

A: Dear Reader,
No, you do not need a new “codec“. I suspect that your “reading” trouble is due simply to dust/dirt on the laser’s lens. Blowing on it with compressed air (such as from a can of the venerable Dust Off) should resolve your problem. (If you cannot see the little lens unit, open the tray, and blow around in there as best you can.)

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Today’s quote: “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ~ Isaac Asimov

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

How To Get Windows Re-Install Discs

Lost your Windows discs? How to get replacement media, legally.

Recently, Ed Bott posted an excellence resource article those of you who have Microsoft Windows PC’s may want to read .. and act on.

“Did your most recent Windows PC come with reinstallation media? Many do, some don’t. But contrary to what you might have read, creating replacement Windows discs is easy, and every major PC maker will supply backup discs, sometimes for free. I have details.”

This thorough write up is a 4-part How To, but you don’t necessarily have to read all 4 parts. I am posting the ‘sections’ so you can go right to the 4-1-1 for your machine’s manufacturer. This will tell you how to create, or obtain (order) the all-important “Windows disc” that you hope you will never need.. but darn well better have.

I suggest reading part 1, and then skipping to your PC maker’s section.

1) Lost your Windows discs? How to get replacement media, legally

Page 2: Dell recovery and replacement policies

Page 3: HP recovery and replacement policies

Page 4: Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba

And if you recently got a new Windows 7 machine, or.. am wondering why I said “should darn well have“, you really should read my In Case Of Emergency: You Need This (Disc)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. So much reading! Actually, it’s not. Obtaining the knowledge contained here won’t take but a few minutes.. and it won’t hurt a bit.

Today’s quote: “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” ~ Clay P. Bedford

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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In Case Of Emergency: You Need This (Disc)

Before you do anything else, please do this:

1) Find the discs that came with the computer.

Do you see a “Windows 7” or “System Recovery” disc? No? Not surprising. Most PC makers are using a recovery partition these days (see, About the Recovery (D:) Drive). Well the plain and simple fact is — In Case Of Emergency: you going to want (need?) this disc.

Why? Because the discs are “bootable”, and can allow you to repair machines that will not otherwise boot (aka “start up”). If you ever run into such trouble, you can boot to the disc; which includes an automated boot-repair tool, some repair/diagnostic tools, and the ability to access a System Restore point and revert your system to an earlier (working) time. (see, My favorite Life Saver flavor? System Restore).
[note: The “recovery partition” option wipes your hard drive, and reverts the machine to the factory-condition state –> total data loss. All your updates and installed programs — gone. Thanks, manufacturers! *]

The disc will give you important “recovery” options, that can get your computer working again.

So you have a partition and not a disc. Remedy that now. All you need is a blank CD or DVD.

2) Click the Start button and type repair into the Search box. The top result is what you want to click – “Create a System Repair Disc”.

3) Your optical drive should be detected (if not, use the ‘drop-down arrow’ to select your CD/DVD drive). Click “Create disc”.

The drive tray should open, so put in your blank disc…

After a few moments, the tray should open (“eject”) and you will now have a “bootable” System Recovery disc…

.. and a powerful tool for repairing your computer in the event of serious errors. You need to make this disc BEFORE you need it.. though I hope you never will.

In case I wasn’t clear: do it now.

Kudos to Microsoft for making this tool a part of Windows.

* Utter, snide, facetiousness. A terrible move; and whoever decided that should be ashamed. And fired. IMHO.

Today’s quote: “”Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.” ~ Douglas MacArthur

Bonus: As a reward for reading down this far, I will explain a bit of Geekspeak you may have seen but not recognized (maybe you have) “disc” – with a “c” – is an optical disc, which you probably think of as a “CD” or “DVD”. When it’s spelled with a “k” (“disk”), they’re talking about hard drives.. usually the storage inside your machine.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Restore A Missing CD Drive*

“Reader writes and asks for help with The Case of the Missing Device…”

Sometimes Windows “Loses” The CD Player..

Q: “Paul I need your help. Yesterday I put a CD in my computer nothing happened. It has been working fine, and usually it will just start playing the first song. I put in a different disk and again nothing. I opened My computer and there was no icon for the DVD. Just icons for the Floppy A:, Local disk (C) and no CD player. It just vanished! I rebooted and that didn’t help. What happened? How do I get my CD player back?”

A: The exact steps required will depend on the cause of the issue, so the following answers are ‘generic’, and may not apply to your particular situation. Read through the list to find the appropriate one for you.

1) Windows XP (and older) have a reputation for “losing” optical drives (but I have seen it occur in Vista) after uninstalling disc burning software — such as Roxio or Nero. (Sometimes.. after installing; but usually it is an uninstall failing to work properly, which leaves incorrect values in your Registry. Sometimes, though less frequently, a Windows Update, or other software change can cause this as well.)

Sometimes Microsoft gets it right:
If this is you — you have uninstalled Roxio, say — the solution is to visit Microsoft Help & Support and click the “Fix It” button. (I have written about using the built in troubleshooter before, see Microsoft “One-click” Fixes) The appropriate Fix it page/button is found here. One click should do it!

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2) If that doesn’t resolve the issue, you can next try restoring your system to a prior (working) state by using System Restore. Please read How To Use System Restore To Fix Windows for instructions.

3) If that doesn’t help, or isn’t appropriate..
Open your computer’s case and check to make sure the power wires, and the ribbon cable are firmly connected to the back of the drive and to the motherboard — they may have become loose or disconnected.

No? Then open your Device Manager. Right-click on “My Computer” and select “Properties”. In Vista, click on Device Manager in the left column; in XP, click on the “Hardware” tab, and then click the “Device Manager” button.

In Device Manager, find “Optical drives” on the list, and expand the category by clicking once on the “+” sign. You should now see the device and a yellow triangle – which is telling you there’s an error.

Right click on the device’s name, and click “Uninstall” from the menu which opens. Answer “Yes”, you want to do that. Then restart (aka “reboot”) your machine. Windows should “find” a “new” CD-ROM and install it for you, thus restoring functionality.

4) If these steps fail, there is something else going on (maybe malware) and I recommend you contact a knowledgeable repair tech.. such as myself (shameless plug).

Today’s free link: KidsEmail.org. Along with ZooBah, something to consider when your child wants their own e-mail address.

Today’s free download: GOM Player is a free multimedia player with popular video and audio codecs built-in. GOM Player supports file formats such as AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF. Users don’t have to install codecs separately. GOM Player is capable of playing incomplete or damaged AVI files by skipping the damaged frames. It can also play locked or partially downloaded files.

* Orig post: 5/4/09

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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About the Recovery (D:) Drive

A Reader Asks a Very Good Question About the “Recovery Partition”..

Q: Paul,
When I open up the My Computer icon on my desktop to check my hard drive, the recovery disk is usually close to 2/3’s full and it is in GB. Is this a drive I want to do anything with? I have plenty of drive space on my C drive but this takes 3-4GB of space.
What is the recovery drive for and should I try to recover the the disk space it uses?

A: When you click on “Computer” (or, “My Computer” in XP) an explorer window will open showing the storage devices (aka “drives”) attached to your computer (storage “memory”). These storage areas will be assigned a “drive letter”, and usually start with the area which contains the Windows operating system and is responsible for “booting” your computer — labeled drive “C:”
Why doesn’t it start with “A:“? Well, back in the day, it did. Long ago, computers came with A and B drives – which were 5.25” ‘floppy’ drives (which contained the operating system. Windows didn’t exist yet). When the first “hard” drive came along, it had to go next in line.. thus C:\ (c: equated to “hard disk” [with a “k”]). Eventually, operating systems were designed to run from “hard” disks, and – eventually – “floppies” went the way of the T-rex. (But “hard disk” still equates with “c””)

I digress, but! I need to keep talking about computer history/evolution for just a bit longer. Long ago, computers used to come with CD’s. Either a Windows CD or a Windows CD relabeled by the manufacturer to something like “Dell Recovery Disc”. These were used in the sad case of really bad errors crashing the computer, and tech support told you you had to “reinstall Windows”.
(Sometimes called “disaster recovery”)

At some point in time, some brick-headed, idjit barnacle of a CEO made the absolutely dumbest decision ever made by Man — in the hopes that they could save 3¢ per computer sold. (Can you guess what I would say to this *person* if I met them?) They decided to do away with the Recovery CD and instead put those files on a special section (called a “partition“) of the hard disk — which came to be Drive D:\ (aka “the ‘recovery partition’)… the topic today. Ahem, sorry.

Back to the topic: When you first start up your computer (aka “boot up”) you will see a drab screen that says something to the effect of “Press F11 to recover your computer” (or some F key.. maybe F10, maybe F2..) This function is used in the sad case of really bad errors crashing the computer, and tech support tells you you have to “reinstall Windows”. (Sometimes called “disaster recovery”)

This “recovery process” will wipe (aka “erase”, aka “delete”) your C:\ drive, and copy the “image” stored on D:\ over to there — thus returning your PC to “factory condition”.. complete with crapware, such as Connect to AOL and Polar Penguins, and minus all your installed programs, updates, and … files.

You do have a backup copy of all those.. right?

This disaster of a disaster recovery method was not necessarily the case if you had/have a disc. Which is why the CEO mentioned above is a jackass. And why you want to read, Windows 7 Owners, You Want To Do This…

Answer the question, Paul: Okay okay okay
The drive D: aka “Recovery” is a special, protected area, which contains the files necessary to restore your computer to factory defaults. You cannot modify it. Short version: Pretend it isn’t there, and … hope you never need it.

(If you are eyeballing that ‘open space’ because you have filled up your C:\ drive.. well, no. What you need to do is install additional storage [ aka “upgrade” ] and/or go in and remove stuff from C:\)

* Okay.. maybe not the dumbest…

Today’s reco’d reading: Warning: Surprise spam trojan on Facebook

“Ever received messages from your Facebook friends containing a notice or invitation, such as an invitation to visit a particular site, added with an interesting message, like “Hey watch this, so cool!”? In most cases, the recipient of the message will be happy to follow it, especially if the message was sent by one of your best friends, which you trust. However, did you ever think that it could be sent by an intruder, spam, or even viruses?

Like yesterday, one of my friends received a “surprise” from Facebook, but then soon realized that his computer was now infected with the trojan, as well as making it a “spam machine.””

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Cure A Finicky CD/DVD Drive

Reader Asks Why Their Drive Sometimes Reads Discs, And Sometimes Doesn’t — And, Is There A Fix?

Q: “Paul, I have an older computer that has started to give me some trouble and I am wondering if it is time to start shopping for a new PC. I am hoping you can give me some advice.

Courtesy of Wikimedia.org

Lately it has started ignoring discs when I put them in my CD burner. It can play some and not others. I am not sure why. I have checked, and Windows says I have the right device driver. Is there something else I should check? I don’t really want to have to buy a new computer right now. Thx.”

A: Dear reader,
Though you say that your computer is “older”, I doubt that this issue will require you to dump your computer for a new one. Please read to the end.
(Folks, it is standard to – when you ask for help – provide basic information about your computer: make/model and operating system are good for starters.)

There are a few different reasons why an optical drive (CD/DVD) might fail to read (or write) a disc. Discs do ‘fade’ and go bad with age, and sometimes they come from the manufacturer with a defect. Sometimes, the drive won’t like certain formats.. or brand names (maybe preferring CD-R’s to +R’s, say), just to name a few. Usually using a different disc or brand of discs will resolve that, should it occur.

You also want to do as this reader did and open Device Manager and make sure your drive is functioning, and its driver is up-to-date. (My How To article on that is here.)

You may have a drive which is failing, and needs to be replaced. Doing so is neither very expensive, nor impossibly difficult, but you may want to hire a tech to do it for you.

However, I think in this case the most likely cause for the finicky behavior is simply that the lens has become a bit dirty and/or dusty, and needs a cleaning. Though you can buy items advertised as especially for such a job, the easiest way to clean your optical drive is to open the tray, and blow it out with a can of compressed air. (Now you know, folks, why geeks always have those cans.. dust is a real enemy of PC’s.)

[addenda: a reader added this good tip to try before replacing a drive.. or computer. “I find that, sometimes, it’s simply just that the connectors have worked a bit loose or oxidized over the years and all that is needed is to yank out the connectors and pushing them in again several times. Oh yeah, it may be a good idea to shutdown and switch off the mains before working inside your PC but without unplugging the cable from the wall outlet.”]

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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My CD-ROM Is Gone. Help!

How To Get Windows To See Optical Drives Again

Q: Paul I need your help. Yesterday I put a CD in my computer nothing happened. It has been working fine, and usually it will just start playing the first song. I put in a different disk and again nothing. I opened My computer and there was no icon for the DVD. Just icons for the Floppy A:, Local disk and no CD player. It just vanished! I rebooted and that didn’t help. What happened? How do I get my CD player back?

A: The exact steps required will depend on the cause of the issue, so the following answers are ‘generic’, and may not apply to your particular situation.

1) In Windows XP and older have a reputation for “losing” optical drives (but I have seen it occur in Vista) after uninstalling disc burning software — such as Roxio or Nero. Sometimes.. after installing; but usually it is an uninstall failing to work properly, which leaves incorrect values in your Registry.
Sometimes, though less frequently, a Windows Update, or other software change can cause this as well.

Sometimes Microsoft gets it right:
If this is you — you have uninstalled Roxio, say — the solution is to visit Microsoft Help & Support and click the “Fix It” button. (I have written about using the built in troubleshooter before, see Microsoft “One-click” Fixes)

The appropriate Fix it page/button is found here. One click should do it!

———————————

2) If that doesn’t resolve the issue, you can next try restoring your system to a prior (working) state by using System Restore. Please read How To Use System Restore To Fix Windows for instructions.

3) If that doesn’t help, or isn’t appropriate..
Open your computer’s case and check to make sure the power wires, and the ribbon cable are firmly connected to the back of the drive and to the motherboard — they may have become loose or disconnected.

No? Then open your Device Manager. Right-click on “My Computer” and select “Properties”. In Vista, click on Device Manager in the left column; in XP, click on the “Hardware” tab, and then click the “Device Manager” button.

In Device Manager, find “Optical drives” on the list, and expand the category by clicking once on the “+” sign. You should now see the device and a yellow triangle – which is telling you there’s an error.

Right click on the device’s name, and click “Uninstall” from the menu which opens. Answer “Yes”, you want to do that. Then restart (aka “reboot”) your machine. Windows should “find” a “new” CD-ROM and install it for you, thus restoring functionality.

4) If these steps fail, there is something else going on (maybe malware) and I recommend you contact a knowledgeable repair tech.. such as myself (shameless plug).

Today’s free link: KidsEmail.org. Along with ZooBah, something to consider when your child wants their own e-mail address.

Today’s free download: GOM Player is a free multimedia player with popular video and audio codecs built-in. GOM Player supports file formats such as AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF. Users don’t have to install codecs separately. GOM Player is capable of playing incomplete or damaged AVI files by skipping the damaged frames. It can also play locked or partially downloaded files.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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