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.

[Tiggerssprings]

Please help am going mad am having a problem with my dvd rewriter I have uninstalled it and restarted the computer but to no avail, when ever I put a blank dvd into the driver it does not recognise it and tells me it is a cd does anyone have any ideas as what to do next the driver is a pioneer dvd-rw dvr-k15, it has worked ok in the past so not sure what to do now.

Thank you

[Thalamus.]

Hi tiggerssprings,

Have you checked through all of the points in Blencogo's post here ..?

[mike9586]

I have a Vaio VGN-FZ11S with Windows Vista Premium and and having a few issues with DVD playback.

The WinDVD software works fine with no issues but both Media Center and Media Player have problems.

On Media Center, it starts playing a DVD very choppy for a few seconds then goes fine.

On Media Player, it tends to play DVDs choppy throughout and while it doesn't slow down to a crawl (like Media Center does for the first few seconds), the framerate can jitter and pause quite often.

Does anyone else have this issue? Thanks

[Tiggerssprings]

Hi Thalamus

Yes i have done all the things in the first post but nothing seems to work my only concern if it needs to go in for repair is according to website there is not a repair center where I live at the mo which means i will have to send it to the uk the only thing I have not done is clean lens which I am going to do tomo.

Thank you
Jolene

[Vmann2000]

oohhh !!

i´ve been sitting with this ******* problem since my update from MS since 2 days and try´d "everything"

...an now it works !!!!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION !!!!

vmann2000

Edited: Profanity

[trblay]

I hope someone can help as VAIO telephone support is useless, they read from a script and I seem to know more than they do....!!!

I have a VGN-FE21B running WinXP MCE and for the past 2 days have had problems with a DW-G520A DVD-RW drive, it shows in Device Manager with no issues and it shows in Windows Explorer. When I insert a CD or DVD (blank or otherwise) it will not see the inserted disc, the drive makes a couple of noises when a DVD is inserted but does not spin-up.

I have uninstalled the drive from Device Manager, I have tried a Windows System Restore and this did not work, I tried updating the firmware from GFS1 to GFS3 and this has not helped. Short of doing a complete system restore I don't where to go from here, it was burning DVD's fine and just stopped working, no changes had been made to software on the machine so I do not think this is the cause.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance.

[orn8one]

Depressing reading his thread.
I have a similar problem which involves iTunes. I can't burn a cd from my library. I get the message:
"Disc Burner or software not found"
This appears in the top Itunes display window where the song title usually appears.
I can play a retail cd using both iTunes and Windows Media Player.
I have no warning signs on device manager.
I have uninstalled Sonic Stage in case there was a clash.
I have a band new AR41S with vista ultimate. I used the upgrade option from home premium [which the laptop was sold with] as I wanted the system restore feature which isn't available on home premium.
I had no problem like this on my previous vaio [a wonderful workhorse].
I can't find a thread about iTunes. Is there a code word for iTunes? If anyone can direct me to a better thread I'd be grateful.
Also is there anyway to get to the last post first. I can't find any controls and the acending/decending doesn't work. I had to go forward 4 pages at a time.
This is the 2nd time I have written this post as the first disappeared when I posted it! Not user friendly, tips apreciated!
Many thanks, in hope!
PS I am not a newbie, I have been a member here for 5 years at least but my login didn't work. Nothing works on this computer!

[Blencogo]

Hi orn8one,

Are you using the latest version of iTunes? It may be worth reinstalling it.

Are you logged on as an Administrator? This message often pops up with iTunes on limited accounts.

Have you got Daemon Tools installed? If so you need to install the addon to Daemon tools that upgrades the SCSI connection and fixes the iTunes bug. it's called SPTD v1.50 X86 and it's at this site:

http://disc-tools.com/download/daemon+sptd+md5sum

Uninstalling Daemon Tools is not enough as it leaves a couple of drivers behind.

To get to the last page of a thread, click on the symbol in the "Last Post" box.

[orn8one]

Thank you for all the tips.
I have reinstalled iTunes and I have ver 7.326 from memory.
By logged on do you mean logged on to the computer as administrator? If so I am logged on as Amanda and I think I am the administrator, I will double check.
My iTunes account shouldn't be limited, it's lets me buy music! I also ran repair on iTunes and that didn't help.
I don't think I have Daemon Tools installed. I read on web pages about that issue. If I have Daemon Tools I can't find them. Can you tell me where to look in case I have missed them. I looked in programs and did a search for them - they didn't turn up.
To my simplistic mind iTunes can't 'see' the cd/dvd driver and I don't know how to direct it.
The disc I used was a TDK cd-r80, perhaps I should try a different brand!
Thanks so much, especially for the last post box tip!

[ivawart]

Hi,

I have a VGN-AR11M and with a DVR-K16M dvd drive. I have recently updated my firmware via the support website to the latest revision (v1.10) so that I could burn dual layer dvds.

Everything went fine and using Nero 7 I am now able to burn dual layer dvds, only the drive will write at a max of 2.4x which takes over 40 minutes!

I have found a more newer firmware version (1.42) from another website, although i'm weary of using it because i've read somewhere that sony might not honour my warranty if i do.

Another thing is that when i look up the drivers for my machine on the vaio site it lists more than one firmware for cd/dvd drive. There's an entry for my drive the k16, but there are also entries for k16vad and k16vas. I have a feeling that these are for different optical drive models, am i correct or can i use one of these as well?

btw, i'm using Aone (RICOH) branded DL DVDs which can be burnt at 8x, so theoretically i should be able to do this, right?

I'm sorry for asking so many questions, but sony's support is not really that good, vague at best!

Thanks for any help