IF YOU HAVE DVD/CD DRIVE PROBLEMS - READ THIS>

[Blencogo]

Several members seem to have problems with their CD/DVD drives at the moment. As far as I know, there is no magic solution but you could try some or all of the following: -

1. See if there is an updated driver or updated firmware for your drive at Vaio-Link. Some Sony drives are re-badged from other manufacturers and you may have to search for updated downloads. For example, if you have a Sony DW-D56A drive, you can get a firmware download from HERE (Use PFS2). Many other drives are also supported on this site.

2. Use System Restore to return your Vaio to the configuration when it was last working normally.
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore - choose a restore date before you had the problem.

3. Look in Device Manager to see if there are any errors against your DVD/CD-ROM drive.
Start -> Right-Click My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager - expand DVD/CD-ROM Drives and check the status. If there is an Error Code or a yellow triangle with a ! or ? come back here with the number and we may be able to help.

4. If there is no error and the drive is reported as working normally, try Uninstalling the drive by right-clicking on it in Device Manager and choosing Uninstall. Re-booting your Vaio will reinstall the drivers.

5. Try some different software to read/write your discs and see if that works. Also try a different brand of discs - Sony, TDK and Verbatim seem favourites.

6. Try a liquid lens cleaner on the lens and polish with a microfibre cloth ? this can sometimes help.

7. If your drive works with either CDs or DVDs only make sure the ribbon cable is not preventing the reader head from moving freely - check that the laser head in the drive can move freely for the whole range of its travel. The disc information is held on the outside tracks for DVDs and the inner tracks for CDs.

8. Last resort is to perform a full C:\ Drive System Recovery from your Recovery Discs. Make sure you back up all your Data as the contents of C:\ will be lost and your Vaio returned to the factory configuration.

If none of these work, you may have a hardware problem and you need to contact Vaio-Link. There is no point contacting them until you have carried out a Drive C:\ Recovery as this is the first thing they will ask you to do.

[BrownPolar]

Thank you very much for your guidance, which should help many members who seem to be having problems with their 'matSHITa' Drivers.

For months I have been having the problem with my DVD drive that it could read any DVD-RW or CD-RW, but couldn't load any DVD-R or CD-R, and answer I got from the Vaio Support was to restore the system to a hardware profile before the problem started, which I didn't want to do.

Having seen your post today, I just cleaned the drive optics with Apple's, brilliant Moster iClean Kit and pushed the laser head to ends of its span several times. The drive started working normal immediately!

Well, I shouted at my VaioBoy for the first time which might have helped a bit as well!

I suggest to anyone who is having similar problems to try the cleaning drill before trying anything else.

Thank you again.
A very relieved BrownPolar!

[dejj]

my vaio started playin up aswell, will write and read DVD's no problem but try to read a CD-R forget it, won't happen, funny thing is it used to work but now it doesn't, System restore doesn't work, 'incomplete' error comes up, uninstalling driver doesn't work, i even used the recovery tool to bring my computer from scracth and that didn't work, someone please advise me!! i need help

oh yeah i've had my laptop 2 months now, FE31H if that helps with a DVD-RAM matshita drive UJ-850S

[pianostem]

Your solution looks very attractive, BrownPolar, but I belong to those people who do not know how to span a laser head. I just completed a full recovery of the C en D drives, but that did not bring my CD-writer back to life. (Playing DVD's is no problem). After the system recovery I had to reinstall my printer and other programs, but for that I had to insert the original discs in the diskdrive! How did other people solve this problem? The only thing I knew to do is to buy an external drive to handle my disks. The laptop requires more than one lap now to be topped on...

Pianostem, VAIO PCG K315Z

[giannis_mgr]

it seems i face the same problem!i post another time this issue and keelo told me will ask the sony link!it happened to me after i made a recovery operation!my copy speed is 2 hours for a DVD!i own also FE-21B!!!if you find out something please contact me as well,thanks

[LEVELman]

Guys I have another kind of a problem... my Original DVDs are lagging... both sound and a view... I even bought lens cleaning dvd but didnt help... Those DVDs are brand new, no chance that they are the reason of lagging. It helps when I uninstall DVD drive and restart comp. but I am not about to do that over and over again ? ! plz help... FE21b, drive: Sony DVD RW-G520A

... I will go crazy if I ll need to give my laptop to a service since its my second part of mine ...

[LEVELman]

Now for example even restarting didnt help ... /Cry

and whats interesting... if I download firmware for my drive that program shows: "No supported drive detected " ...

and last edit: after carefully watching it I have noticed thats it only a sound that lags... it sounds like when its raining but you can hear it very very good... that problem appears in all dvd players I have. Any ideas ? . . . /audio CDs make no problems... /

[juzaam]

Hi, i have just purchased a SONY N11/M with the following dvd-rw : SONY aw-q540a .

It seems that I'm the only one in the world with this drive! Can't find any support over the internet...

Sadly, it never worked... From the moment I received the notebook, my first thought was that it was not meant to write on DVD .. but it should !

It simply cannot recognize a empty dvd...

And it seems that there is no firmware available in the entire net.

Can you help me with this? I have already opened a case at vaio-link , but no response yet...

Thanks!

[rich912]

Hi juzaam and welcome to the forum.

I assume that you are not trying to use the Windows operating system to write DVD’s? Windows does not support writing to DVD - what software are you using?

Otherwise take your Vaio back to the retailer and demand a replacement.

[giannis_mgr]

Please go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager and click on + beside IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.
this will pop down a list of 3 devices.
Right click on Primary IDE Channel and go down to properties.
Click on the Advanced Settings tab at the top.
You will have two Devices. Device 0 and Device 1.
Please insure that the transfer mode for both is set to DMA if available.
Also check that the current transfer mode is set to one of the ultra DMA modes.
Some of these options might not be available, that's ok, please move to the next step.

Once you have these changed click on the drivers tab at the top and click on the uninstall button near the bottom of this page.
Click on the OK button on the next window.
The unit will ask you if you want to restart the unit.Click on Yes.

The unit might ask you to restart the unit again once it has boot on.

Regards

Sony Vaio Team

[lizmac]

Sony Vaio Link Team

Thanks. Tried that but still no luck. Any other suggestions? My DVD stopped working last summer - might have been something to do with a Windows Update but I don't exactly know.
Lizmac