CD Burner Problems.
Hey Fluther. I’ve been having some problems with my CD Burner in my computer. It is also a DVD player, but is reeeeeeeaaaallllly old. So basically I just tried to burn a CD, it said burning failed, I kind of figured it would say that, because I can’t even play DVDs on it. I can’t find any drives for it either. But now the big problem is… it won’t even open! I can’t even get my blank CD out of my computer! It’s not in use by anything, it’s not trying to burn anything on to it, my drive just WON’T OPEN. Has this happened to anyone before? What did you do to fix it? Is there a “force open drive” option where on my computer? (I’m on Windows XP SP3 and the drive model is LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-4836K, I’m not very tech savvy, but that’s what it says in my Device Manager under DVD/CD-Rom Drives.)
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There should be a little hole in the front of your CD drive that you can fit a straightened paperclip into, pushing this will cause the drive to open so you can at least get your CD out. Do this when your computer is turned off. Then, boot it back up and try burning again, this time hopefully with a different brand of CD. But if it won’t even read DVDs then yeah I think it’s more of a hardware issue than software. Then again it could always be the drivers. Is there any more details you can tell us about the drive so we can try to find drivers?
How much more detail is there than the model? I’m not being sarcastic, I actually don’t know if I can find more detail. Model is LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-4836K.
I found 1 firmware update but I have to boot it from a blank CD, which I obviously can’t do if I can’t burn anything.
Hmm, I just used the Windows Device Manager to search for updates for the driver, but it said it could not find a better match to my CD drive than the one I have now.
My apologies, I had missed you mentioning the model of the drive. Unfortunately I’m not running SP3 so I’m not sure if it could be a related issue or not. I’d ask a friend to burn that CD for you, that would be my next troubleshooting stage, updating the firmware and hoping for the best.
I’m getting a new DVD Burner before Christmas anyways, so I’m not too worried. :)
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If the drive won’t even open by pressing the eject button I highly doubt it’s a firmware or driver issue, just a bad drive. They are very cheap now, check sites such as www.newegg.com or www.zipzoomfly.com and you’ll often find them for < $30.
It’s easy to replace a CD/DVD combo or a CD/DVD rw combo. Places like amazon have them for $25 to $30. They usually don’t have separate drivers; the software is built in. You just open the computer case, disconnect the 4 pin power plug and the ribbon cable. Then put the new one in and plug in the ribbon cable and the power plug. Then look at the device manager to see if it recognized the new drive. If it recognized the new drive, you’re ready to go. Don’t buy a SATA drive unless your computer already has SATA.
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