DVD-ROM dying?

[Luke727]

I've got a Toshiba SD-M1212 DVD-ROM drive here. It was working fine and dandy a little while ago, but it's been having problems. In DOS and Windows it says the device is not ready when trying to read discs. After looking into it, when I put a CD in it, it only spins up for like half a second and then stops spinning entirely. Normally drives spin up for a good 10-15 seconds, right? I'm guessing that the motor is dying. Is there anything else that could be causing the problem or is there a way to fix it? Other than buying a new one.

 

[Luke727]

bump

 

[altonb1]

Didn't respond when I first saw this because I couldn't really think of anything to suggest you try, but let's give it a shot...

You indicate that you have tried this in both DOS and Windows. When you have tried this in DOS, are you booting to a bootable floppy or booting into a command prompt only, or just opening a command prompt window from within Windows? If you have not attempted this already, create a windows 9x staretup diosk. (You did not indicate which Windows OS you are using, so I'll assume win9x), then reboot to that floppy. When prompted, select start windows with CD-Rom Support. When the system finally finishes booting, attempt to access the drive ;etter assinged to this drive. If you can read it okay, your problem is with the Windows driver or some related file. if you cannot, your problem is going to be hardware related; you either have a bad IDE controller on the system board, a failing IDE cable, or a failing drive. One of these is your culprit.

 

[Luke727]

The machine is running Windows 98SE and I'm booting off of a floppy with nothing but the drivers on it. It's not the IDE controller or cable, since I hooked up a spare cd-rom to it and that works fine. I guess there's nothing more I can do...It's just that this DVD drive is only like 3 years old. I've never had any hardware fail on me in such short time. Guess there's a first time for everything. I feel it's the motor and am going to see if it's possible to replace. It's not like I'll make it worse...

 

[Luke727]

One other thing that I found odd. Windows and DOS both see the drive fine, but if I click on the drive and then click properties, it says the file system is FAT. Normally it would say CDFS if there was a CD in the drive or Unknown if the drive was empty. Don't know if that is relevant at all. Just mad cause I looked at the drive and it was actually manufactured March 1999, so it's only 3 years old. Bastards.