Any Computer EXPERTS on here? Not for the faint hearted!

[unfortunately_french]

Hello all, if anyone on here is or considers themselves to be a computer expert then i could really do with some help. I've got a Sony Vaio VGN-CR42Z/R laptop and recently after partitioning my hard drive and installing windows 7 on the new partition, suddenly my DVD drive is really playing up. It's very strange, when you put in certain DVD discs, the drive spins up really loudly, but nothing actually happens in terms of getting the content up on screen. For example today I tried installing a program from a re-written disc and when I insert the disc, it spins up for ages, light goes on and off on the disc tray and when i try and double click the drive in 'my computer' it just puts up the circular spinning icon (loading) for ages and does nothing, it essentially crashes windows explorer until you eject the disc. Now i know that this is something to do with the drivers and i have downloaded and installed the latest ones, tried uninstalling them and letting windows find and reinstall them upon restart but I just can't get it to read the disc. Strangely though when I tried installing a new printer the other day, the disc for that worked fine. I know that the disc im trying to install this other program from is ok because I have checked it on another computer. This is a shot in the dark trying to get help with this on a clio forum but I just thought i'd put it out there and see if anyone can help. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Alex H]

Some disk drives can only read DVD+R's, some can only read DVD-R's. I'd hazard a guess at that.

 

[H182]

Sounds like the drive is bust tbh, see if it reads and boots the windows installation disk again before windows loads to rule drivers out.

 

[Mot!]

Get a new drive, they're cheap enough. Put your bezel on the front and off you go.

That's not such an old laptop, it shouldn't have any trouble reading the different DVD varieties.

 

[bmit]

Update the drives firmware (separate to drivers BTW )perhaps..

 

[Damo_Sport]

Drivers or the Disk drive is buggered

 

[mantis946]

Id take a stab at incomparable driver's for windows 7, what did the laptop ship with when you purchased it ? Normally if you go to the manufactures site (Drive) and look for driver's there is normally a few different versions, had a similar problem with an SPU i had a while back

EDIT: checking online i got a few details (Can never be sure with these)

Operating System / Software
OS Provided

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Optical Storage
Type

DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM

Dual layer disk perhaps ? Could test with an external USB one

 

[Ms_Technical]

You need to check for drivers for this particular disc drive and Windows 7.
On the Sony website somewhere

 

[unfortunately_french]

Drive is not buggered as strangely i managed to install a new printer's disc on it the other day!? It comes with windows vista but due to the fact that it's poo ive partitioned the hard drive and installed windows 7. Sony have listed the fact that my laptop isnt compatible with windows 7 however everything on it works fine and was working fine, it's just recently that its stopped reading DVD's/CD's. If you try some discs for ages like i did with the printer it finally worked but its very unreliable and i'm having to copy and paste the content of any discs I want to use on to USB stick and then getting them onto my laptop using that method. I've tried the solutions listed above apart from buying a new drive as i don't believe there's anything wrong with the one on there mechanically, so i guess i'll just have to use the USB stick method for now until i find a fix Thanks for your input guys...and girl

 

[unfortunately_french]

Also tried doing a system restore to a point before the issue occurred, but couldn't go back to a date where it wasn't doing it. Strange.

 

[mantis946]

I'd highly reccomend (if not tried already) uninstalling all drivers for the DVD drive, and downloading specific Windows 7 drivers and installing them. Alternatively USB plug in drives are dirt cheap

 

[Nickson]

Drive is not buggered as strangely i managed to install a new printer's disc on it the other day!? It comes with windows vista but due to the fact that it's poo ive partitioned the hard drive and installed windows 7. Sony have listed the fact that my laptop isnt compatible with windows 7 however everything on it works fine and was working fine, it's just recently that its stopped reading DVD's/CD's. If you try some discs for ages like i did with the printer it finally worked but its very unreliable and i'm having to copy and paste the content of any discs I want to use on to USB stick and then getting them onto my laptop using that method. I've tried the solutions listed above apart from buying a new drive as i don't believe there's anything wrong with the one on there mechanically, so i guess i'll just have to use the USB stick method for now until i find a fix Thanks for your input guys...and girl

You mean formatted right?
Maybe the drive is incompatible with 7, and not the entire system would be my stab in the dark.
Very hard to diagnose from a distance over the internet.

Maybe Sony didnt release drivers for the drive that would be compatible with 7.