Cd/DVD Drive Problem

[Rollingthunder]

Got a fairly current HP laptop

Received a couple of CDs from friend in OZ (i'm in Canada). They won't play, the drive won't even start spining. Popped in Fleetwod Mac cd and that was fine. Even downloaded another driver - no luck.

Is this a zone difference type thingy?

Help gratefully appreciated.

[Bushfiva]

No, no region encoding on audio CDs.　Are these commercial products or CD-R/CD-RW?

[Rollingthunder]

CD-R/CD-RW

And person put a lot of love in the recording selections and a lot of effort, so want them badly.

[twiggs]

It is possible that the drive is not capable of reading CD-R but more likely CD-RW.
Check the specs of the drive first to see if it is supposed to be able to.
There are many varieties of writable CDs and DVDs and not all drives read them all.

[Bushfiva]

Rollingthunder, you need to work out exactly what the discs are: CD-R, CD-RW, CD+R or CD+RW. My guess is it's a "+" type disc and your drive does only "-".

Ignore this post, it's nonsense. My brain segued to DVDs. See #5.

[Sprogget]

That would be my guess too. This came up a few weeks ago with another ppruner. If the disc won't play at all, the best hope is to try it in another machine.

If you can get it to play on another machine, rip the contents to the hard drive & copy it back out again using a usb stick or an external hard drive. Pain in the backside it is.

[Saab Dastard]

Guys,

CD types are NOT the same as DVD types - there are no such things as CD+R or CD+RW.

Have a look at the definitions here: Bemuso.com - CD basics, different types, recordable, speeds, standards, copy-protection, CD-DA, CD-R, CD-RW (http://www.bemuso.com/musicbiz/cds.html) or here: Optical Storage Types - (http://www.opticalstorage.org/category/optical-storage-types) or here: Compact Disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc#Recordable_CD)

A very common problem is a CD-RW disk failing to play in an incompatible CD drive.

SD

[Bushfiva]

Whoops, yes, you're completely right. Total brainfart back there. I agree the problem may be CD-RW, or a drive not compatible with one of the CD-R dyes.

[frostbite]

Isn't there also the question of finalised/non-finalised if it does turn out to be a RW type?

[piggybank]

Yes, I am having the same problem on my DVD RW drive, you may find the drive is failing. Something you can try that seems to work one time in three on my erratic drive is press eject, lift the disk and turn it a quarter turn and then close. Leave a few seconds as it seems slower to be recognize.

In my case I also use a free download program from Nero, go to the Nero site, and select Nero DiscSpeed ver 5.0.1.250 its 3.20 MB. The help file is a seperate download and mine came in German(no use to me), but the program is straight forward. Put a music disk in, and click the Start at upper RH. Mine seems to show an increase in speed from start to finish. I should have tried a data disk as speed was from X6 at start to X12 at finish. Maybe the data disk would read faster. I am assuming a slipping drive belt but probably the optics are fungussed.

None if these drives last long. Mine is 5 years and often 3 is a good life. If you are really keen you can strip it, and the worm drive that moves the reading head to the centre start position can be seen to be worn. You can wrap PTFE tape round it and its bearing area. Not worth the effort unless you are desperate in a remote area.