I have a Toshiba Satellite A25-S207. The Teac combo DVD/CDRW drive
reads CDs with ease but DVDs only intermittently. The noise it makes
is like a nanosecond of the searching noise and then an abrupt stop.
When it does work, there is a good deal of noise and vibration.

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.

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

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 at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

wrote:
I have a Toshiba Satellite A25-S207. The Teac combo DVD/CDRW drive
reads CDs with ease but DVDs only intermittently. The noise it makes
is like a nanosecond of the searching noise and then an abrupt stop.
When it does work, there is a good deal of noise and vibration.

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.

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

This is typical of a laser problem, but since you seem to be capable, it
might be worth a try just to clean, (properly clean, mind you) the laser
lens.

Most all modern DVD players and drives actually have a dual element
laser-diode, one side optimized for cd/cdr, the other optimized for dvd.


Mark Z.

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?

davidlaska wrote:
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?

The firewire ports are the same. Be careful, firewire 400 ports are
notorius for both being able to be plugged in backwards if you push (for
example by reaching around the back of a computer) which can burn out
the ports and Macintosh computers are very finicky about the cables. I
bought a USB 2, Firewire combo which would not work on my Mac until I
bought a better cable. You may have a similar problem with the laptop.

The other problem is that you may need software to use the drive as
a burner. I know Windows XP has some sort of file burning software in it,
and I've used XP longer than most people on many systems, but have
never used it.

I use NERO, which you can download a demo for free. I also use
BURNATONCE (freeware) for copying CD's and buring ISO images, and
Slysoft's suite for copying them.

You can also try DVD decrypter (free but no longer available, look for
it on archive sites) to read and burn video DVD's and DVDshrink to convert
a double sided disk to single sided by recoding the video.

Geoff.


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

On Jul 15, 9:54 am, (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) wrote:
davidlaska wrote:
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?

The firewire ports are the same. Be careful, firewire 400 ports are
notorius for both being able to be plugged in backwards if you push (for
example by reaching around the back of a computer) which can burn out
the ports and Macintosh computers are very finicky about the cables. I
bought a USB 2, Firewire combo which would not work on my Mac until I
bought a better cable. You may have a similar problem with the laptop.

The other problem is that you may need software to use the drive as
a burner. I know Windows XP has some sort of file burning software in it,
and I've used XP longer than most people on many systems, but have
never used it.

I use NERO, which you can download a demo for free. I also use
BURNATONCE (freeware) for copying CD's and buring ISO images, and
Slysoft's suite for copying them.

You can also try DVD decrypter (free but no longer available, look for
it on archive sites) to read and burn video DVD's and DVDshrink to convert
a double sided disk to single sided by recoding the video.

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/

MeatPlow made me realized firewire is firewire. You brought up two
issues that I will have to explore, quality of the cable and see if
"Nero" can recognize the burner.

Is there more than one archive site? I only know about "webarchive.org"

davidlaska wrote:

Is there more than one archive site? I only know about "webarchive.org"

If you are refering to DvdDecrypter, it was a available as freeware until
Macromedia bought it. AFAIK they have not demanded the recall of the
freeware versions (as if they could) so if you STFW, you will find one.

The first hit I had by typing DVDDecrypter into Dogpile gave me:

http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/SetupDV...er_3.5.4.0.exe

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