Laptop combo drive stopped working

[morkman100]

Hey guys,

Strange problem. My 2 year old HP Pavilion ze4560us laptop started feeling really sluggish, so I figured a clean install was due. I used the OS CD that was included (not the recovery CD) and reinstalled WinXP and the drivers. But now I can't access the combo drive. It obviously worked fine before, since I was able to boot to the OS CD for the install. I've tried deleting and reinstalling the drivers, installing new firmware, everything I can think of, but nothing has worked. I've even copied the cdrom.sys file from another XP machine, but that didn't seem to help. The weird thing is that when I delete the drivers, I can run Add New Hardware and it recognizes the drive and installs the correct driver, but then nothing after that.

In short..

Before clean install:
- would boot from CD
- would read/write CD-R's as normal

After clean install:
- will not boot from CD
- will not read/write CD's/CD-R's

Short of replacing the drive, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff7]

Is it a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive? If so, can it read DVDs?

What brand and model is the drive?

 

[morkman100]

The drive is a SQI SBW-241 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive (it is the factory drive).

No, it stopped reading DVD's too.

Thanks.

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

I will be following this thread closely. I too rebuilt my Compaq Presario 2199us (HP in disguise) with the factory OS cd and now have problems accessing the DVD/CD-RW combo drive. However, my problem is intermittent. Sometimes the drive works and other times it doesn't.

When it doesn't work it's just like the drive is not even there as far as WinXP is concerned.

I also dual boot Fedora Core 3 which never has issues with the combo drive and it is also readily recognized by the Bios. Really strange

JR..

 

[corkyg]

Clean installs on laptops often require installation of the laptop's device drivers separately.

 

[morkman100]

Originally posted by: JoLLyRoGer
I will be following this thread closely. I too rebuilt my Compaq Presario 2199us (HP in disguise) with the factory OS cd and now have problems accessing the DVD/CD-RW combo drive. However, my problem is intermittent. Sometimes the drive works and other times it doesn't.

When it doesn't work it's just like the drive is not even there as far as WinXP is concerned.

I also dual boot Fedora Core 3 which never has issues with the combo drive and it is also readily recognized by the Bios. Really strange

JR..

The strange thing for me is that I can't even boot to a CD anymore. Unless it was just a coincidence that the drive failed after working ok to install XP from the CD, I'm at a loss. I wanted to buy a new drive locally (to return in case that didn't fix the problem), but they don't seem to be something that stores will carry. I might just have to order one...

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: morkman100
The drive is a SQI SBW-241 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive (it is the factory drive).

No, it stopped reading DVD's too.

Thanks.

Ok, I was curious. There was a rash of Dell laptops awhile back with DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drives that would stop seeing CDs, but they'd still work with DVDs. Brand and model was different though: HL-DT-ST GCC-4240N.

Odd problem indeed.

 

[morkman100]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Clean installs on laptops often require installation of the laptop's device drivers separately.

I've been looking for one, but all google and hp.com have turned up was a firmware update... no drivers. I even did the firmware update via floppy boot disk, and it seems to update fine (no error message of a missing drive or anything). This is killing me.

 

[morkman100]

BUMP for JollyRoger and I...

 

[corkyg]

Just checked my H-P stuff - my Pavilion came with a DVD entitled, "Application and Driver Recovery DVD." And also a CD entitled "Operating System CD." (Microsoft #Windows XP Pro with SP2) And there is another CD that contains the entire user's manual in PDF format.

Have you looked here?

HP

 

[morkman100]

Yeah, tried all of those already. I think I'm going to buy an external DVD burner and try reinstalling WinXP again (I need an external burner anyways for something else). If that doesn't work, I'll just try replacing the original drive.

Thanks to all.

morkman