cd-rom won't read CDs

[catfishtom21]

Hello,

This is my first post here, or any PC forum. I have read a lot of posts though, and know I should provide as much information as I can about my PC and what I've tried.

My problem is my cd drive. It does not recognize blank cds nor cds burnt on that drive. It does read music cds recorded professionally (original CDs) and a music cd recorded a while back on a friend's PC. The drive did, for a while after problems started, read blanks and burnt them but then didn't recognize these to open the burnt cd once ejected. An older laptop running Windows ME can read discs burnt on this drive including the recently burnt ones

I have looked for posts on this and haven't found any. I have tried to update the driver with no new one available. I uninstalled the driver and reinstalled and rebooted. I ran a cleaning disc. I looked at properties of all drivers in the system and found none recently installed.

My system info:
Compaq PC labelled BIOS version 786k2
xp home edition version5.1.2600 service pack 1
AMD Athlon XP 1500 1325 MHz
512 MB 40 G Hard drive, 37.25 capacity 34.63 used 2.61 free

CD drive listed as (Standard CD-ROM drives) Model: Lite-on LTR-24102B driver cdrom.sys Aug 18 2001
LITE-ON LTR-24102B

It is the original drive and is internal. It is the only cd/dvd drive and I have never had another drive attached. The only peripherals attached to the computer are the printer, scanner, and monitor.

Does anyone have suggestions? (I can't reinstall the system as I have pictures that need to be backed up first and now the drive doesn't recognize blanks again.) Any help would be appreciated, including what else to try before posting for help in the future or what to include in a post.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

[Sylvander]

Did this oldish CD-RW ever work with WinXP?

Did you ever run the Windows XP Upgrade Advisor to check out your hardware and software for compatibility with WinXP?
Try it now.

Which program[s] did you use to burn the CD's [CD-R or CD-RW?]
Does Windows Explorer see the disks?

I wonder whether IsoBuster 1.8 will see the contents of the CD's?
When my "DirectCD" CD-RW disks could on one occasion no longer be read, this could see the contents and copied them to the HDD and I "erased" the CD-RW disk and re-burned them back to the CD-RW disk. Problem fixed.

"the drive doesn't recognize blanks"
It's more likely the program [or Windows] that cannot see the CD.
You should perhaps try booting to something other than Windows to see if that can read the CD's contents [=nil].
On my Win98 PC I'd use a startup floppy and DOS commands, or a diagnostic program on a floppy, or boot my "Emergency Boot CD" and use "Volkov Commander" to read the drive contents, or boot from the "Knoppix" bootable CD and use that OS and its file browser to read the CD's.
Do you have any programs that run from a bootable disk and include programs that can read CD's?

QUOTE
[From Easy CD Creator help files]
"Problems Reading Recordable CDs
If your CD is ejected, or you receive an error message, or you have random problems accessing files from the CD, the problem may be that your CD-ROM drive is not well calibrated to read recordable CDs."

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Is this the original drive that the ComPaq came with? Do you have the burning software and not just the ComPaq restore disks?

If you do have the software for the burner, here's something to try:

Go to Device Manager and click on 'remove' the drive. I believe that choice will be found as a right click on the drive under cd drives. Then reboot and reinstall the software after XP reinstalls the generic atapi drivers. If this gains nothing, try a cd-rom cleaning disk. Not one for cleaning disks but the one for cleaning the drive. If still no-go, the drive may be on it's way out and a new one would more likely be your only choice.

An alternative to reinstalling via restore disks is to take the harddrive out and slave it in another pc to retrieve your files, then put it back and run the restore cd's.

I'd love to suggest that you just get an XP cd and install that instead but some Comcraps have hidden partitions with BIOS information and it requires the original configuration to work.

My opinion is that the drive is weakening and on it's way out. CD and DVD burners are very inexpensive these days and most times come with burning software bundled with them. They would be compatible with your Compaq just fine.