DVD/CD-RW combo drive won't work

[joea64]

I bought an IBM Thinkpad 600E today with a PII 366mhz CPU, 128MB RAM, 6 GB HD, Windows 98SE. The vendor's techs put in a Toshiba SD-R2002 DVD/CD-RW combo drive on the spot and tested it while I watched, and it was working fine. However, when I got home and tried to load some CD-ROM's to install additional software, I found that for some reason, the drive wouldn't read the discs. The drive light goes on when the door is opening and flashes again when the disc loads, but the install routine (if the disc is an autorun type) doesn't start up, and when I try to find the setup program on the disc in question under "Run" from Start Menu, the system keeps claiming that the D: drive is not ready. Nonetheless, Device Manager claims that the drive is working properly. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening, because I know for a fact the drive was working properly when I bought the machine. Before I take it back to the vendor tomorrow to see what they can do, does anyone have any ideas as to why this is occurring? (Yes, I made sure that the drive was properly seated in the bay - I unseated and reseated it several times while I was trying to figure out what was wrong).

-Joe-

[Whyzman]

Are these OEM software disks or something that you've recorded??

I have an appointment I need to run to, but I thought if they are factory software programs that you might want to check and see if there are any known issues with disks and Toshiba...

I know for a fact that one of the Veggie Tales movies had a known conflict with the Toshiba players...I think this was due to copy protection stuff that was creating a problem...

Just a thought....

[joea64]

Two of these are OEM software disks (PowerDVD version 4 and Nero), and one is a CD-R of various items that I originally put together for loading onto my DV box. Being that they're all from different sources I am not quite sure how a copy-protection issue would apply to all three of them.

-Joe-

[Whyzman]

Well.....it was just a thought...

Would you be sure to let us know what the techs find?

[joea64]

Resolved - and I'm feeling pretty stupid right now. It turns out that I wasn't seating the CD/DVD's properly on the drive spindle; that model has a spindle on which you're supposed to press the disc down gently until it locks into place. Naturally, I didn't know that at all, which means I spent the evening fretting over something that I might have solved with just a little more experimentation. Moral; always make sure you have the techs show you how to use a laptop when you buy it.

-Joe-

[Budfred]

I had the same problem with my Dell laptop at work. First time I tried it, I couldn't figure how to seat the disk and I am used to being very careful with how I handle disks, so it didn't occur to me to push on it. Luckily there was a techie around who knew how to do it, but I felt silly not figuring it out on my own....