Technical doofus needs help with broken DVD drive
September 2nd, 2020
I have a Compaq V500 that runs on XP.
Last week it’s dvd drive stopped communicating with the operating system (ie. It doesn’t even show up in the ‘My Computer’ file). When I insert a disc it whirrs a little and the ‘In Operation’ light flashes for about 30 seconds……but then nothing.
Could this be virus based or is it just plain dead?
I’d really appreciate some help.
Kind regards,
Lams.
Does the device perhaps show up in the device manager? To access it click on Start–>My Computer(right click)–>Hardware–>Device manager. If it does then try deleting it and let Windows detect it. Also, open up your computer and check the data cable, it might be malfunctioning. If it is a bad data cable then you’ll have to replace it. Test the optical drive with a working one just to know
Good luck mate ^_^
Thanks .
It is present (albeit with a warning exclamation mark).
When scanning for new hardware it detects it….but then says it’s not installing properly.
I’ll keep trying….but much props to your good self. I really didn’t expect such a prompt, helpful and friendly response.
Thanks again.
You might also want to try and uninstall the device. Then restart the PC. Also, did you check the data cable? Try switching to a different data cable and see if it’s detected. Please post back and tell us if switching the data cable changed anything. Good luck with fixing the problem mate
That one didn’t work either
I’ve had a look inside and it’s a ribbon type cable. Are these easy to replace?
Thanks again.
That one didn't work either
I've had a look inside and it's a ribbon type cable. Are these easy to replace?
Thanks again.
Yeah, quite easy, just pull that one out and replace it with a different one. If you have another optical drive (another CD/DVD-Rom) then pull out the cable out of that one and replace it into the drive you need to test. Ribbon bales are quite easily replaced mate
Best of luck ^_^
buy another