Laptop help needed

[sifelicia]

Hiya peeps,

My daughters HP G6065EA laptop has developed a fault with the DVD drive. she is quite distraught as she purchased it with her own money and its now out of warrantee:(

You can open the drive, put a disc in and the drive light will flash for a short period then nothing:confused:

I have checked device manager and My computer and the drive is no longer listed in either:thumbdwn:

Can one of the techy minded please explain in laymans term's whats happened ?

I've tried microsoft's fixit program but to no avail, i have also tried a full system re-boot but that didn't work either:(

Thanks in advance

Simon

[mannyo]

The laser has proberbly gone west, so the drive is now bust. The best news is though, that laptop DVD drives are dirt cheap and fairly easy to replace.

[Phil_P]

I have checked device manager and My computer and the drive is no longer listed in either:thumbdwn:

If it's not showing in device manager then sounds like the drive has failed.

Maybe consider an external USB drive as a replacement?

[sifelicia]

Thank's guy's I'll have to have a muse about the net and see what sort of money they are then:(

[Rhoobarb]

In my experience, if a unit is faulty, it usually makes windows go a bit odd or full of read errors, windows error messages, etc. never seen any component in a pc just run in a corner to whimper and die quietly. They like a bit of a show!

If the lasers gone, it should still show up in windows, just not be able to read anything.

Has she uninstalled one of these or similar?

* iTunes software by Apple

* Nero software by Nero Inc

* Roxio Creator software by Sonic Solutions

* Zune software by Microsoft

or any other burning or media type software? Notorious for making drives disappear.

Before your dig deep, some things to try first. Nothing to lose by trying.

Make sure if its displayed in the bios and make sure its not disabled, take the drive out, give the connector a clean, makes sure all looks ok, no bent pins/connectors etc. Restart the laptop into windows. Shut it down, slot the drive back in make sure its seated properly and restart again.

Also

Microsoft Windows Vista

1. Click Start

Collapse this imageExpand this image

Start button

, and then click All Programs.

2. Click Accessories, and then click Run.

3. Type regedit, and then click OK.

Collapse this imageExpand this image

User Access Control permission

If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.

4. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

5. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.

Note You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You do not have to remove that entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you do not see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 8.

6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

7. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

8. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.

Note If you do not see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web site.

9. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

10. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

11. Exit Registry Editor.

12. Restart the computer.

Now go to the "Did this fix the problem?" section.

Back to the top

Microsoft Windows XP

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.

Note You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You do not have to remove that entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you do not see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 7.

5. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

6. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

7. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.

Note If you do not see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web site.

8. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

9. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

10. Exit Registry Editor.

11. Restart the computer.

There are other things to try, like I said, I would be very surprised if it had failed completely

Edited 31 October, 2009 by Rhoobarb

[vRSLen]

I have 2 laptops with defective drives that will not read.

I bought a USB one from PC World for just under £40

[Wardy]

And if it is the drive, I might be able to sort you out an HP replacement part. Report back on how you get on

Steve

[cjb]

In my experience, if a unit is faulty, it usually makes windows go a bit odd or full of read errors, windows error messages, etc. never seen any component in a pc just run in a corner to whimper and die quietly. They like a bit of a show!

If the lasers gone, it should still show up in windows, just not be able to read anything.

Has she uninstalled one of these or similar?

* iTunes software by Apple

* Nero software by Nero Inc

* Roxio Creator software by Sonic Solutions

* Zune software by Microsoft

or any other burning or media type software? Notorious for making drives disappear.

Before your dig deep, some things to try first. Nothing to lose by trying.

Make sure if its displayed in the bios and make sure its not disabled, take the drive out, give the connector a clean, makes sure all looks ok, no bent pins/connectors etc. Restart the laptop into windows. Shut it down, slot the drive back in make sure its seated properly and restart again.

Also

There are other things to try, like I said, I would be very surprised if it had failed completely

:iagree:

I've seen exactly this caused by installing and then removing burning software.

Have yuo tried booting a bootable CD from it? If that works then it's fine, and it's probably the solution above.

[Robshaw]

When you start it have you tried booting from CD?

Does it make any difference with it in 'safe mode' ?

- It sounds like the drive is fooked to me. I'm another fan for a USB job - I may even have one. (Let me get back to you.)

Hope this helps,

Rob.

[gadgetman]

Updated any drivers recently?

[sifelicia]

Hi guys nope note updated anything, and have checked the BIO's and its not showing there either.

All the talk about registry just confused me but i followed the instructions above and there was no 'upper' or 'lower' in the list under that particular registry string:confused:

Tried removeing drive,restarted and put back in and nothing, it wont boot from the recovery discs either so i assume it's nacked:thumbdwn:

Cheers Rob, I have found one at £35.00 new but with the postie stikes lord knows when it would arrive so holding fire at the moment:thumbup:

[VWD]

Have a look on here -

www.aria.co.uk sometimes got items cheap in bargain basement etc

Edited 1 November, 2009 by mannyo
fix url

[Wardy]

Would an OEM HP replacement not be preferable, rather than having an external drive to contend with?

If you can take the drive out again and post a photo up of it, showing the HP part sticker, I might be able to do something...

Steve

[sifelicia]

Bear with me Steve, i'll try and get a pic later on.

All i know is it has the bevelled edge to it

[Captain Sisko]

My cousin just bought a HP laptop and has the same/similar symptoms.

Tried forcing Vista to reinstall but it reports that the correct drivers are installed but the drive doesnt appear in the Explorer window.

Stick a CD in it spins, then stops then sits there

There is an error triangle in device manager.

but i think he can just take his straight back to the shop.

[cheezemonkhai]

I had the same with a toshiba and a new drive fixed it.

You don't need to go with a HP drive and you could just buy a standard laptop drive, remove the old one, swap the adapter plate off the back and onto the new drive.

Once you've done that it will slide in as the old one cam out.

Only thing is that you need to make sure the drive you're replacing has a standard and not curved front as otherwise the new drive might look out of place.

Certainly the internal drives are a much better option than a USB drive and cheap too.

[swedishskoda]

The DVD on our desktop Dell suddenly disappeared... turned out that some update or program install was the cause, fixed with a bit of registry edfiting:

Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs

Maybe worth a try?

EDIT: Ooops, sorry, now I saw that Rhoobarb already suggested that...

Edited 2 November, 2009 by swedishskoda

[Nuriyan]

I appreciate I am late on trying to help on this one, but when CDROM/DVD ROMS are not recognised and dissapear in Windows, first thing is check the drive is recognised in the BIOS. NExt, and always quite handy to have is just a small Linux Distro that you can boot from the CD Drive, this way you can test if it is Windows or the Drive, if it boots its ok, if not, more digging required...

http://www.knoppix.com/ is quick and easy way of testing it...

Nine times of of ten, its a registry issue, Microsoft released a small hotfix which basically reset some information and allowed the drive to reinstall, looking from the posts above, that has been suggested so....