On Jul 12, 10:24 pm, (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) wrote:
wrote:
This drive only has a single lens that reads both DVDs and CDs. I have
reinstalled the drivers and used canned air with no result. Any idea
why the drive reads DVDs intermittently? I am trying to use the
recovery DVD to reformat the computer.

It's probably has a marginal laser LED for the DVD's. DVD's are read
with a different color laser than CD's. Pressed (as opposed to "burnt"
or recordable CD's) can be read with the laser for DVD's, which is why
early DVD players could play DVD's but only commerical CD's.

The drive only has one lens, both lasers share it.

Im pretty good taking stuff apart if doing something would actually
fix the drive but I dont want to make it worse.

If it's just the laser and nothing else, you MAY be able to locate a
brightness control for the laser inside the drive. I have often found
them on cheap DVD players (which are bigger and have things more
accessable). If done properly, it can make the drive work BETTER
than it does, but I have never had 100% success.

It also causes the laser to burn out faster, or if it deteriorates
from use, fail completely sooner.

If your computer has USB ports and will boot from them, IMHO you would
be better off using an external DVD drive. Ask around, you may be
able to borrow one.

Since many people upgrade DVD readers or slow burners in desktops,
you may be able to find one for free on a FREECYCLE or similar
list and stick it in a case with a built in USB to IDE converter.
They are pretty cheap these days.

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog athttp://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

I have one of those recycled slow DVD-r burners you talked about
(Toshiba 5000 series) that I bounce around between a internal IDE
hookup on my desktop and a fire wire enclosure for mac laptop.
Someone gave me a compact presario 1500 laptop with mini firewire
port. I bought a cable to hook up the burner in external firewire
enclosure (oxford chipset) to the mini fire wire port on the compact
laptop. Windows XP undated the drivers from the net and I can read
CD's and DVD but I cannot writer anything to that drive.

My question is, is a mini firewire ports function different from a
regular firewire port?
Am I even asking the right question?