Tech says the problem is XP, is it?

[josie]

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 about 1 1/2 yr. old with XP Home Ed. version
2002, Service Pack 1 with all current updates . It has a DVD player drive
and a CD-R drive. Suddenly the CD-R drive is jammed, the tray will not
open. The only thing I did prior to this problem was to use the pressurized
cleaning duster for my regular cleaning maintenance. I tried the paper clip
insertion, it did not open. I have about 1 1/2 yrs left in my Dell warranty
so I called Dell tech support. It was very frustrating, waited for 1 hour to
get a tech I could not understand too well and then she gave me directions
so fast I could not keep up with her and had to ask her continually to slow
down. OOF, got that out of my system!!

The only way we could get the CD drive tray to open to remove the CD was by
hitting F2 upon startup and then do a NUM LOCK, CAPS LOCK and SCROLL LOCK
lit and pressed Alt E and Alt F, ESC, save changes and restart. After
restart the tray refused to open again and only after another "fix" like the
one just described did the tray open. Subsequently, it opens some times
others not unless I do the fix. The DVD drive, floppy drive, and everything
else works fine.

The tech instructed me to close most starting programs through running
msconfig to have more memory available (doest that have anything to do with
this???) and said that I HAD TO BACKUP ALL MY FILES BECAUSE THE PROBLEM WAS
THE XP SOFTWARE NOT THE DRIVE AND XP WOULD HAVE TO BE REINSTALLED. THAT I
SHOULD CALL AGAIN TO DO SO.
I would like to hear other people's opinions on this. I assumed the problem
was the drive itself or something related to it. I want to be sure others'
similar experiences might shed some light on wether what she says is true
and reinstalling XP is the only way out. Please comment on this, it'd help
me out a lot. I use the recording drive often to save my photo files pre and
post editing. Thanks, Gem

 

[Phil]

If you push the button on the cd drive and it does not open it has nothing
to do with windows or software. Pushing the eject button is a hardware
function. Sounds to me like the motor to open and close the tray is dying or
dead. A very common problem. Call dell back and tell them the motor is dead
and they need to replace it.

 

[V Green]

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 about 1 1/2 yr. old with XP Home Ed. version
2002, Service Pack 1 with all current updates . It has a DVD player drive
and a CD-R drive. Suddenly the CD-R drive is jammed, the tray will not
open. The only thing I did prior to this problem was to use the pressurized
cleaning duster for my regular cleaning maintenance. I tried the paper clip
insertion, it did not open. I have about 1 1/2 yrs left in my Dell warranty
so I called Dell tech support. It was very frustrating, waited for 1 hour to
get a tech I could not understand too well and then she gave me directions
so fast I could not keep up with her and had to ask her continually to slow
down. OOF, got that out of my system!!

The only way we could get the CD drive tray to open to remove the CD was by
hitting F2 upon startup and then do a NUM LOCK, CAPS LOCK and SCROLL LOCK
lit and pressed Alt E and Alt F, ESC, save changes and restart. After
restart the tray refused to open again and only after another "fix" like the
one just described did the tray open. Subsequently, it opens some times
others not unless I do the fix. The DVD drive, floppy drive, and everything
else works fine.

The tech instructed me to close most starting programs through running
msconfig to have more memory available (doest that have anything to do with
this???) and said that I HAD TO BACKUP ALL MY FILES BECAUSE THE PROBLEM WAS
THE XP SOFTWARE NOT THE DRIVE AND XP WOULD HAVE TO BE REINSTALLED. THAT I
SHOULD CALL AGAIN TO DO SO.
I would like to hear other people's opinions on this. I assumed the problem
was the drive itself or something related to it. I want to be sure others'
similar experiences might shed some light on wether what she says is true
and reinstalling XP is the only way out. Please comment on this, it'd help
me out a lot. I use the recording drive often to save my photo files pre and
post editing. Thanks, Gem

Make a startup floppy. Boot with it. Find out
your CD drive still does not work.

If it works OK, then XP is somehow locking it, but I'll be
damned if I know how...

 

[t.cruise]

Also: Try right clicking the drive in either My Computer or Windows Explorer, then left
click: Eject. If the button on the drive does not eject, but right clicking the Eject
command as described above does work, then I'd assume that the drive is defective, and
would have Dell replace it before your warranty expires.

BTW: Although Dell systems are a good buy, especially since comparable systems made by
other PC makers usually don't come with a Windows XP CD, and CDs for the bundled
programs/drivers, Dell keeps using its out of date review of being number one in support.
Also, when Dell support is mentioned in the TV Ads, you're shown an American giving the
Support, which is misleading, since Dell now farms out its support to India. If you read
the article (link below) Dell has ceased the routing of Support calls for its corporate
customers, but has retained it for their home customers. That's like saying "We know the
Indian support is inferior, we care more about our corporate customers, and the home
customers can have the "sucky" support. The tech person that I spoke with gave me the
same kind of inferior advice that you got. Being more tech savvy than the tech person I
was speaking with, I asked to speak with a Supervisor. Just like in the article, I was
told that there aren't any. Out of curiosity, did Dell Support route your call to India?
Check out this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2004-08-26-techsupport_x.htm

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

It's a defective CD drive. There is no way that the OS can
physically jam a hardware component.

Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH

 

[Lerner]

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 about 1 1/2 yr. old with XP Home Ed. version
2002, Service Pack 1 with all current updates . It has a DVD player drive
and a CD-R drive. Suddenly the CD-R drive is jammed, the tray will not
open.

Turn it on and press the EJECT button way before XP starts to load. Doesn't
open? It's BUSTED.

The only thing I did prior to this problem was to use the pressurized
cleaning duster for my regular cleaning maintenance.

Watch where you go with that air... if you blow it into drives (floppy, CD,
etc.) you could mess up the alignment or get dust into parts that don't like
it.

I tried the paper clip insertion, it did not open.

It should. You may have missed the "lever" inside the door. It's mechanical
so it's unlikely to fail unless the drive gear mechanism itself is busted.

I have about 1 1/2 yrs left in my Dell warranty
so I called Dell tech support. It was very frustrating, waited for 1 hour to
get a tech I could not understand too well and then she gave me directions
so fast I could not keep up with her and had to ask her continually to slow
down. OOF, got that out of my system!!

Turn on the PC, go the CMOS settings screen (or boot to a DOS diskette) - at
that point the CD should open/close properly and it if doesn't then it's
jammed or broken.

The only way we could get the CD drive tray to open to remove the CD was by
hitting F2 upon startup and then do a NUM LOCK, CAPS LOCK and SCROLL LOCK
lit and pressed Alt E and Alt F, ESC, save changes and restart.

This is the stupidest thing I've heard of. What is this key sequence
supposed to do?

After
restart the tray refused to open again and only after another "fix" like the
one just described did the tray open. Subsequently, it opens some times
others not unless I do the fix. The DVD drive, floppy drive, and everything
else works fine.

If the power is on and XP not loaded, the drive should open/close fine. If
it stops working in XP then you have a software problem most likely and
should run "SFC /SCANNOW" and let it look for damaged files.

 

[Lerner]

was the drive itself or something related to it. I want to be sure
others'

Make a startup floppy. Boot with it. Find out
your CD drive still does not work.

If it works OK, then XP is somehow locking it, but I'll be
damned if I know how...

The same way CD burning software does it. It's not the how, but the WHY is
XP is the only place it's busted.

 

[zag]

Not so Phil -
The eject button on the CD definitely interacts with the
software and the OS, just as the Master Power Button on
your computer acts differently in Windows than it does
in, say, DOS or Norton Ghost.
z ------------------------------------------------------

 

[Sjonia Harper [MSFT]]

If your CD-R drive tray is suddenly not opening after a 1 1/2 years, the
issue is not Windows XP, there is a mechanical failure with the drive tray
and Dell should replace it. Re-installing XP will not make the tray work
properly.

You can verify this by right-clicking the 'My Computer' icon and selecting
'Properties'. From there select the 'Hardware' tab and then click the
'Device Manager' button. From there expand the menu tree until you locate
you CD-R drive and double-click it. If you see the message in the Device
Status box that says 'This device is working properly' then you know that XP
is not the problem. You should also click on the 'Driver' tab and then
verify with Dell that you have the latest version.

You should be in the habit of regularly backing up your machine anyway, but
only reinstall your OS software if it's absolutely necessary and this just
doesn't seem like the case.

 

[josie]

Thank you all soooo much for the helpful feedback. Unfortunately something
has come up that I'll have to go away for a week or so. But I will follow up
on this as soon as I get back. I didn't want to say it but I really felt
like they were trying to delay the possible replacing of the drive while
under warranty. I am also curious about this idea of XP "locking up" the
drive, tha sounds like what the tech said, hmm....Will post when all this
gets resolved one way or another. Gem

 

[Lerner]

Greetings --

It's a defective CD drive. There is no way that the OS can
physically jam a hardware component.

Try ejecting a CD during a CD burn... it won't happen, will it.

(This is all assuming that this happens after booting into the OS)

 

[Barry Watzman]

The tech is full of it. This is a bad drive. End of story.

Now, that said, your comment that "I tried the paper clip insertion, it
did not open." is also hard to accept. The paperclip is a mechanical
operation of the door mechanism that, really, is "fail safe" and can't
fail to work unless there is an absolutely catastrophic mechanical jam.
It is possible to "miss" the piece that you have to hit if you insert
the paper clip at an angle (or if it's not straight), but it's all but
impossible for it to fail to open the door.

But you have a drive problem of some sort, it's not a software issue.
If anyone wants to challenge this, boot to a DOS floppy disk, find that
the eject button doesn't work, then let them tell you that it's a
software problem (when there is no Windows running at all).

[IF you end up having to replace the drive on your own nickel, get a
Samsung "combo" drive (SM-352 series), then replace the DVD ROM drive
with a Pioneer A07 or A08 series DVD burner -- it will be the ultimate
in optical drive packages.]

 

[Barry Watzman]

It is possible for software to "lock" the drive, disabling the button,
and quite a few programs do this (virtually all burning programs do it
when the drive in question is either the target of the burn or contains
files to be burned).

However, the simple test is to try it before windows boots, following a
hardware reset of the computer, because a reset unlocks the drive, and
there's no way for it to become locked again until windows is up.

 

[Plato]

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 about 1 1/2 yr. old with XP Home Ed. version
2002, Service Pack 1 with all current updates . It has a DVD player drive
and a CD-R drive. Suddenly the CD-R drive is jammed, the tray will not
open. The only thing I did prior to this problem was to use the pressurized

Turn the pc on. Push the button to open the drive. If it doesnt' open
the drive is toast.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Try ejecting a CD during a CD burn... it won't happen, will it.

(This is all assuming that this happens after booting into the OS)

Also try ejecting a mounted CDROM in Linux when it's mounted. Won't
happen then either.

Steve

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Lerner wrote:

This is the stupidest thing I've heard of. What is this key sequence
supposed to do?

F2 enters BIOS Setup on a Dell. The other keys may be resetting certain
things or perhaps resetting to factory defaults. Dell BIOSes are
proprietary with very little documentation availble to end users.

Steve

 

[Guest]

Not true.
Right now, as I type, I am waiting for my CD drawer to open. Software is
keeping it closed as the "read" LED is still blinking. How do you respond to
that?

 

[Guest]

It will if you manually eject the CD with a paper clip while a burn is in
progress. At least I can. Josie said she/he tried opening it with a paper
clip and it wouldn't open for her/him.

 

[Greg R]

That a safety feature. To keep the cd from getting damaged. If it
is stuck. I would do a hard boot. Then when I turn it on. Keep
pressing the cd eject button tell it pops open. You may damage your
cd but it should not damage the cd drive.

I got a dos cd eject program. (I will put it on my website-if I can
uploaded). He could use a 98se boot disk and try to eject it.




I also got another program that will force an eject.
AutoEject for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0
Version 1.22 June 27, 1997 by Kevin Marty
What happen if the cd is being used. Your screen will go blank for a
seconded. Then a blue screen of death. This blue screen of death
ask you a question. It says Do you want to continue with the eject
request? I have never said yes.

Greg R

Not true.
Right now, as I type, I am waiting for my CD drawer to open. Software is
keeping it closed as the "read" LED is still blinking. How do you respond to
that?

http://www.angelfire.com/in4/computertips/

 

[Guest]

Thanks Greg.
I was aware of that, I was simply trying to make a point that CD ejects can
be prevented by software. I have damaged a few CD's by doing a hard boot.
Right now I don't know if I have a hardware or software problem as both
"Roxio Easy CD Creator" and "Windows CD Writing Wizard" will supposedly
sucessfully burn a CD (I get a dialogue box that says so) but when I stick
the CD in my CD-ROM there are no files on it. Also, Roxio Direct CD shows it
as a blank CD when I place it back in my burner and asks if I want to format
it for "Drag and Drop".