How to Replace a Laptop DVD/CD ROM Drive

How to Replace a

Laptop DVD/CD ROM Drive

1). Turn off the laptop and unplug the AC adapter. Remove the battery.

2). Turn over the laptop. The CD drive is normally held in place by only one or two small screws, located towards the middle of the computer. Sometimes, there is a picture of a CD drive next to the screw. Many times, the screw is underneath a label, necessitating the removal of the label.

3). Remove the screws.

4). With the screws removed, the old drive should slide out easily. Slide out the drive.

5). Slide the new drive into the case, and replace the screws.

6). Boot up the laptop. Install driver software if necessary, and make sure that the drive is recognized by the operating system.

Fix CD/DVD Drive Issues

There are 9 large general categories of symptoms of CD/DVD drive malfunctioning from the drive not lighting up all the way to drives that burn, but with errors. This troubleshooter divides diagnosis, tips and suggested fixes into the 8 sections, Steps 3 through 10 according to the degree of problem with the drive. Additional preliminary sections for common causes and fixes and quick freeware tools are also included as steps 1 and 2.

Instructions

1

(a) Try restarting your PC before checking or doing anything.

(b) If you can't see your drive in My Computer or Explorer, hit F5 to refresh the list.

(c) Try updating Windows. Also try updating your CD/DVD playing and burning software.

(d) Look for an issue on your CD/DVD drive or your system's manufacturer's site. There may be a new issue caused by a Windows update.

(e) Update the firmware for your drive from your computer's manufacture site or the drive manufacturer.Make sure there are no disk issues like incompatible disks e.g. DVD in a CD player or burning a disk at higher speed than is possible with the disk.

(f) Another disk issue: can the disk that you are trying to read, be read from another computer or is the disk damaged? 

(g) Also make sure the disk is right side down.

(h) Make sure the drive is correctly configured in the BIOS. If the drive has been manually configured previously, try setting on "Automatic".

(i) Also try updating the BIOS.

(j) Purchase a "CD Lens Cleaner" and see if this will run in your drive. These are specially designed CDs with brushes on the bottom that will clean the read and separate burn laser (if there is a separate one) of the drive. It's better not to try cleaning the drive with a compressed air because laser are delicate, but as a last resort it may be OK.

(k) Another strategy is physical: open the PC cover and make sure the power and data cables are securely attached to the drive.

2

(a) Here are some quick freeware tools to try if you don't have time.

The links are also listed in the Additional Resources list at the end of the article
http://aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip - this very popular fix may help the drive reappear in Device Manager or My Computer/Explorer. Third party CD/DVD playing and burning software should be reinstalled afterwords.

(b) It's essential ingredient is the removal of the upper and lower filters in the registry. * http://www.pruittfamily.com/paul/hosted-software/xp_cd_dvd_fix.exe - this is another similar fix that may help the drive reappear in Device Manager or My Computer/Explorer. Again reinstall 3rd party software. http://www.digitalsupporttech.com/download/tools/FixCdRomTypeError.exe - this tool will correct the type of CD/DVD drive identified as in the registry e.g. CDR, CDRW, or CD Rom. * http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs - this little script will set the data transfer setting of your CD/DVD drive back to DMA which is faster and newer method than the old PIO method. This may fix drive issues. * http://www.oemailrecovery.com/cd_recovery.html - CD Recovery Toolbox - for recovering data off damaged and corrupt CD and DVDs. * http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html - SONY rootkits cause CD drive issues. This uninstaller fixes them. *

(2) http://www.stuartandnicola.com/system/files/SendToCD_registry_key.reg - registry keys for repairing the Repairing the "Send To CD Drive" shortcut.

3

If After Installing a New Drive Both Don't Work: * Try each drive attached on the IDE ribbon separately. If they do work separately odds are, both drives have their jumpers set to be master drives which according to the article, "Configuration Using Cable Select", in the Additional Resources Section at the end of this article, is or at least was in 2001, the default setting for hard drives.

Change one to master and the other to slave. * Alternatively you can use a cable select data cable and set both drives to cable select jumper settings. * If your drives are both not working it is also possible you are using a regular IDE cable instead of a cable select one, and both drives are set to cable select. With this wrong cable situation both drives set themselves as Master.

4

the CD/DVD Drive Door Will Not Open: See if the tray is obstructed. Stick a straightened out paper clip in the little hole and try to push out the tray. With removable laptop drive, pull it out and shove it back in solidly. With removable laptop drive, also clean the contacts of the drive with a pencil eraser.

 

With a PC, unplug the machine and pull the data and power cables and then reset them firmly, being sure to connect completely. With a volt meter, test the power cable going to the drive. It should have two wires with a 5 volt ~1 amp circuit and the other two with a 12 volt ~1 amp circuit.

 

From these tests, you can determine if the drive is mechanically and electrically sound and if the power supply needs replacement. Note that there are usually several spare power supply drive leads which can be tested and used to replace a faulty one. Purchase and use a "CD Lens Cleaner" or use a compressed air cleaner can as mentioned in step 1.

5

 

If the Drive Does Not Light Up When a CD/DVD Is Placed in It: With removable laptop drive, pull it out and shove it back in solidly. With removable laptop drive, also try cleaning the contacts of the drive with a pencil eraser. With a PC, unplug the machine and pull the data and power cables and then firmly reseat them. If the drive functions perfectly well without an indicator light, the drive light may be defective.

Failure to light up may indicate a problem with the inner workings of the drive, such as a short in the drive motor, drive train or laser or some kind of electrical failure in any of those three. In that case you probably need to replace the drive. If you have the means you could purchase and use a "CD Lens Cleaner" or use a compressed air cleaner as mentioned in step 1 to see if a lack of a drive light has to do with a dirty laser, but this is unlikely.

6

If the Drive Initially Lights and Then "Dies" After a Disk is Inserted and for Instance You Keep Receiving a Message "Please Insert Disk" No Matter What You Do: * This may indicate a dirty laser lens.

Purchase and use a "CD Lens Cleaner" or use a compressed air cleaner as mentioned in step 1. Intermittent drive lit states could indicate loose cables. Take off the cover of your PC and make sure the drive cables are firmly attached. If you have a laptop, a technician may need to take apart the machine to make sure the drive connections to the motherboard are secure. 

Many laptops have modular CD/DVD drives that you can sometimes reseat by pulling them out and pushing them back in firmly. With removable laptop drive, also try cleaning the contacts of the drive with a pencil eraser.

7

If the CD/Drive Lights Up but Fails to Appear in the Device Manager: * Try right clicking on My Computer and choosing "Manage." Click on Disk Management on the left hand side and then under the "Action" Menu choose "Rescan Disks." * Also go into the Device manager, click on the root of the tree or on any of the items and choose "Scan for hardware changes." * A dying motherboard, for instance one that has a dead IDE channel, can cause this. A way around is to buy a PCI IDE or SATA expansion card and hook your CD/DVD drives to that. 

Viruses can also cause Device Manager disappearances. Do a virus scan. * Remove the upper and lower filters from the registry keys at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318. You may have to reinstall burning and viewing software. If you use ITunes, remove the lower filter and set the upper filter to the value of "GEARAspiWDM" without the quotes. See the Additional Resources at the end of the this article and try the popular CDGONE patch. This removes the upper and lower filters and changes some additional keys. Any third party burning and viewing applications may have to be re-installed. Using search, find the afs.sys and/or afs2k.sys files. Rename them with a "bak" or "old" extension. These Oak Technologies cd driver files conflict with Windows cdrom.sys, the CD-ROM driver.

8

  

If the CD/DVD Drive appears in the Device Manager but Fails to Appear in Explorer and My Computer: * Remove the upper and lower filters from the registry key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318. You may have to reinstall burning software.

If you use ITunes, remove the lower filter and set the upper filter to the value of "GEARAspiWDM" without the quotes. * Try the popular CDGONE patch that removes these filters and changes a few other registry keys. * Look at the registry settings for the value "NoDrives" at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer. If it is anything other than zero, Group Policy may be hiding the drives. You may have to ask your administrator to change things, but if it is a local machine not in a business setting, you can change Local Group Policy yourself by running gpedit.msc in the Run box on the Start Menu.

In Device Manager, uninstall your CD/DVD drive and then have Windows rediscover the device by rescanning for hardware changes * In Device Manager also uninstall and reinstall the IDE port on which you drive is located. * Check if the c:\windows\inf\cdrom.inf file exists and appears in good shape. You can replace the XP SP2 (or SP3?) file or the Vista SP1 (and SP0?) versions with those listed in the Additional resources section at the end of this article. * Try right clicking on this inf file and choose install. It reinstalls all the driver files for the CD/DVD drive.

Using search, find the afs.sys and/or afs2k.sys files. Rename them with a "bak" or "old" extension. These Oak Technologies cd driver files conflict with Windows cdrom.sys, the CD-ROM driver.

9

If the CD/DVD Drive Does Not Read Disk: Remove the upper and lower filters from the registry key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318. Reinstall 3rd party burning software. 

If you use ITunes, remove the lower filter and set the upper filter to the value of "GEARAspiWDM" without the quotes.  You should especially remove the filters if CD-ROM access is missing and messages cite error Code 31, Code 32, Code 19, or Code 39 after you remove Easy CD Creator. Try the popular CDGONE patch that removes these filters and changes a few other registry keys. 

If Sony music CD was ever played on the machine, try uninstalling Sony's Rootkit. See the link in the Additional Resources section. Uninstall your CD/DVD drive and then have Windows rediscover the device through the add hardware wizard by right clicking on the root of your computer in Device Manager and choosing "scan for hardware changes."  Uninstall and reinstall the IDE channel in Device Manager on which your drive sits, it's usually the second one, even if both the first and the second are called "Primary IDE Channel".  Is the CPU usage in Task Manager very high while accessing or recording the CD/DVD drive? This problem may caused by the drive being in PIO rather than DMA data transfer mode. Right click in Device Manager on the on your drive's IDE channel -> choose Properties -> then choose the Advanced Settings Tab -> Change the drive from PIO to "DMA when possible" access. 

This is also a in the Additional Resources section below, which when executed (ignore the warnings) will set all the drives back from PIO mode to DMA.  You can also try to do the reverse and set DMA to PIO only and see if this allows reading of a disk. * Make sure that your CD/DVD drive is on a separate IDE cable than the one you are using for your hard disk(s).  Install the Microsoft Autoplay Repair Wizard from the Additional Resources link. Amazingly this apparently fixes some drive reading problems. 

Using search, find the afs.sys and/or afs2k.sys files. Rename them with a "bak" or "old" extension. These Oak Technologies cd driver files conflict with Windows cdrom.sys, the CD-ROM driver.

10

f the CD/DVD Burner Does Not Write Any Data or Music: * Also try a CD lens cleaner and compressed air to clean the drive. * Update your burning software, especially Easy CD Creators versions 3.X and 4.X to version 5.X or 6.X. * CD/DVD writers need at least as much space as the disk contains in order to internally create a temporary image of the disk before burning. In Properties->Recording tab of the drive, you can change where this temporary file will be stored. * Also make sure your drive is write enabled by opening My Computer->Right-click the CD-RW drive-letter, and choose Properties->Select the Recording tab->Place a checkmark near Enable CD recording on this drive and click OK.

 

On the same tab, try changing the CD/DVD burning speed to "1X" as the "fast possible" setting may be causing buffer overruns. * With XP but (not Vista), check if the IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service is started. It manages XP's native CD recording. * Remove the upper and lower filters from the registry key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318. You may have to reinstall burning software.

 

If you use ITunes, remove the lower filter and set the upper filter to the value of "GEARAspiWDM" without the quotes.* Also look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer. Modify/Create the Value Name [NoCDBurning] to Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: NoCDBurning. Value Data: [0 - Enable Burning]. * Also locate and Check the value of "Drive Type": HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CD Burning\Drives\Volume{GUID}. DWORD = 1 is a CDR, DWORD = 2 is a CDRW, DWORD = 3 is a CDROM.

 

In Device Manager, uninstall your CD/DVD drive and the IDE channel the drive sits on and have Windows rediscover the device by right clicking on the root of your computer in Device Manager and choosing "scan for hardware changes." * Is the CPU usage high while accessing or recording? This problem may caused by the drive in PIO transfer mode. Right click on the right IDE channel in Device Manager and choose Properties->Advanced Settings tab->change the drive from PIO to "DMA when possible" access.

 

See the Additional Resources for a script that will do this. * Using search, find the afs.sys and/or afs2k.sys files. Rename them with a "bak" or "old" extension. These Oak Technologies cd driver files conflict with Windows cdrom.sys, the CD-ROM driver.

11

Drive Burns but With Skips, Lost Data and/or Errors: Remove the upper and lower filters from the registry key at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318. You may have to reinstall burning software. f you use ITunes, remove the lower filter and set the upper filter to the value of "GEARAspiWDM" without the quotes. Is there the high CPU usage while recording? The drive may be in PIO not DMA data transfer mode. Right click on the appropriate IDE Channel in Explorer/My Computer -> on the Advanced Settings tab change the data transfer from PIO to "DMA when possible" access with XP or "Enable DMA" with Vista. 

A VBA script in the Additional Resources section of this article will set all the drives back from PIO mode to DMA. Ignore the warnings. Perhaps this will solve your problem. * You can also presumably try to do the reverse and set DMA to PIO only and see if this allows burning of a disk. * On the Recording tab properties of the drive in Explorer, try lowering the burning speed to 1X from "Fastest possible" as the latter may somehow not be possible.

If you are using a 3rd party software see if you can find the burning speed setting in the Options of your software. Try a lower burning speed as higher speeds can cause a perennial optical disk burning issue call buffer underruns, although this is usually not a problem with today's drives.  Make sure you have the size of the CD or DVD in free space available on your hard drive for a temporary disk image or you may not be able to burn your disk. 

Make sure that your CD/DVD drive is on a separate IDE cable than the one you are using for your hard disk(s). Mixing the two kind of drives sometimes causes them to malfunction. * Apparently Windows does not play nice with older version of Adaptec CD creator or EZ Creator.  In case your issue is due to a dirty laser lens, purchase and run a "CD Lens Cleaner". These are specially designed CDs with brushes on the bottom that will clean the read and separate burn laser (if there is a separate one) of the drive. You can purchase these special CDs at computer stores and office supply store for $2-$15. 

A compressed air cleaning might also be effective.  Using search, find the afs.sys and/or afs2k.sys files. Rename them with a "bak" or "old" extension. These Oak Technologies cd driver files conflict with Windows cdrom.sys, the CD-ROM driver.

Tips and warnings!

• Be sure to make a System restore point so if you make any changes to your machine you can reverse them. To do this got to Start Button -> Click on Programs -> Click on Accessories -> Click on System Tools -> Choose System Restore. Follow the directions to make a restore point.