DVD/CD doesn't read CDs (but does read DVDs)

[Boris]

A friend of mine has an odd problem: His Toshiba laptop (running Windows XP
Home) doesn't read CDs anymore. However it does read DVDs. Whenever you put
a CD in it Windows Explorer says there is no CD. We can see the LED
lightning - it seems like the DVD/CD tries to read the CD but fails.

I checked device drivers but there is everything alright. The CDs we tested
can also be read by other computers. I was told that someone else
reinstalled Windows XP on the laptop which didn't help either. Is it
possible that the DVD/CD is broken? I would be very surprised though as I
would then expect that DVDs can't be read either?

By the way, it's a TEAC DW-224E if I remember correctly.

Boris

 

[Jim]

A friend of mine has an odd problem: His Toshiba laptop (running Windows XP
Home) doesn't read CDs anymore. However it does read DVDs. Whenever you put
a CD in it Windows Explorer says there is no CD. We can see the LED
lightning - it seems like the DVD/CD tries to read the CD but fails.

I checked device drivers but there is everything alright. The CDs we
tested can also be read by other computers. I was told that someone else
reinstalled Windows XP on the laptop which didn't help either. Is it
possible that the DVD/CD is broken? I would be very surprised though as I
would then expect that DVDs can't be read either?

By the way, it's a TEAC DW-224E if I remember correctly.

Boris

Since the drive uses a different laser to handle CDs than it does to handle
DVDs, it isn't surprising that it might not be able to deal with CDs while
dealing with DVDs correctly.

This is a hardware problem. You can try one of the laser cleaning disks to
see if that helps. Otherwise, it is replace time for the device.

Jim