DVD Drive woes

[Mâra Trilokadev]

I wonder if I might benefit from some of the expertise around here.

My DVDRW drive (TSST TS-H553A ATA) has stopped recognizing media of all forms -cds, dvds, blank media, the lot. The system VVista Hope Premium) recognizes it is there, and device manager tells me it is working but it isn't.

I've removed and reinstalled the drivers and firmware - no joy. I've removed it from the system both through device manager and physically uncoupling it and turning off the sata thingy in setup during the boot process. I then shutdown, re-coupled it, and told the boot setup it was back. Still no joy.

No program recognizes media in the drive - not windows, windows media, and none od my dvd cpy software (I've tried both DeepBurner and Ashampoo). I've also cleaned out the registry.

The pragmatist in me tells me to go over to bustbuy and drag back a new drive. The cheapskate in me wonders if there might be something I missed when trying to bring the drive back to life.

I should probably say when it stopped, I was burning a dvd using DeepBurner - the buffer seems to have maxed out and the thing got stuck at 51% and started making a godawful noise. If godawful noise = broken I'm just wondering why windoes seems to think it works.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, even if they are 'take thyself to the store and spend money.'

All the best,
MT

[Moparmike]

Mara,

That sure sounds like a hardware failure internal on the drive. More than likely either the servo motor that spins the disk or the servo motor that moves the laser head...or any one of another mechanical failures. Regardless, the drive to computer interface is working properly but the mehcanicals aren't tracking the media good enough to get any usable data from it. Seen quite a few of em do that. It's time for a new one

[Buddha13]

Hi all,
Just a little note of interest,TSST drives are rebadge Samsung drives.Dell use them in a lot of their machines these days.They also appear as other drives.I have two Writemaster drives in my new machine.They are also TSST drives.
OH and yes your drive is knackered.

Buddha13

[Mâra Trilokadev]

Thank you both for your input; you're both spot-on. Knackered it was indeed. I just got myself a lovely new drive and it works beautifully. I hate spending money when I needn't but I'd be lost without a DVD writer.

Thanks again to you both.

Cheers,
MT

[stansdds]

Thank goodness optical drives are inexpensive these days, except for BlueRay, and I'm sure that will come down given more time.