CD-ROM Drive Not Reading Discs

jmedina

Solid State Member
Messages
7
I tried installing Linux Suse 10.0. I clicked install and it could not find any packages on the disk. Then, I decided to go back to Ubuntu which I was running before and it read. Until I pressed install and it gave me a disk read error.:mad:
Then I put the disk back in and it will not read anything. The read light will not even go on. Is it dead? Or, does the lens need to be cleaned?:confused:
 
It sounds like it is a dead drive. If you want to give cleaning a try do that, it won't hurt anything.

The best way to rule out anything but a bad drive would be to hook your drive to another comptuer to see if it works. This way we could eliminate a bad controler on your motherboard.
 
Would you recommend using pressurized air to clean the inside of the Drive? I have Two Hard drives in the machine. Before I tried installing Suse Linux I physically moved around the Hard Drive IDE Cables to make Windows the Master. But, I did that before and had no problem. Do you think that could be something?
 
If it is canned air, it should be no problem. But air from an air compressor I'd be carful with.

When you changed the drives around, did you switch the Master/slave jumpers too? If you didn't, I would check that out and re-do them so they match their new posistion.
 
I was installing fedora 5 on mine and it stuffed up. I tried putting XP back on it but it came up with a bland screen! later when I attached a new cd/DVD drive on it it worked.
 
If it is indeed a faulty drive, and is impossible to put right, you can buy a perfectly good CD rom drive for next to nothing nowadays.

Heck, for not much more, you could have a CD copier, or even a DVD/CD copier.
 
Thank You for your responses. I'm going to try cleaning it out when I get a second. I will let you know how it went.
 
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I decided not to use can air because when I press the air into the drive the dust will not come out, since there are no air holes. I will eventually replace it. While I was checking all of the connections I accidentally took the power plug out of the floppy drive. I could not fit the cable back in:mad: I broke one of the power pins so now I have to replace the CD-ROM drive and the Floppy Drive. Oh Well... It is not as bad as crashing a hard drive. I'm hoping that it is not my Motherboard Controller. I do not think it is because before it stopped reading it, it worked but it would work slowly or not at all. Where as if it were the Motherboard Controller, it would not work at all. Does this make sense? I'm thinking I will have to reinstall Windows 2000 because when I tried installing Suse Linux it formatted the drive and tried installing the boot loader onto the Windows Hard Drive. Meaning it probably screwed up Windows.:(
Thanks for your help:)
 
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