CD-ROM / CD-RW problem

[ilyail3]

I have a problem with my CD-ROM and CD-RW
It ignors(CD-RW read as empty, CD-ROM says that there is no disk) rendomly disks
I think that the reson it ignors them is that the disk have bad sectors in it somebody can help me solve this problem
I tried Micrososft windows update

[Big Booger]

If the disk has bad sectors, you need to get a new disk.. I know of no way of fixing a disk with bad sectors.

You might try a drive firmware upgrade, uninstall and reinstall the drive, or cleaning the lens of the drive with a lens cleaning kit..

:D

[SupaStar]

Have you tried performing a FULL erase on the disk? This *should* make the disk like new!

[Stripe]

hmmm...if the cdrom is ignoring random disks, it can be a couple things.

The drive is an older drive and cannot read disks that fall under the "high density" group (unlikely, but I dont know the age of the drive). If this is the case, you'll have to replace the drive.

The cd's are scratched or dirty. Grab a soft cloth and clean the cd's. Even if they look clean, clean them anyways. Sometimes there is a film on the cd that creates problems when the drive attempts to read the cd.

The drive is bad. A good indication of this is if you place one of the "non-readable" discs in the drive and reboot, do the pc "see" the disc now? If so, it's time to replace the drive. You can try cleaning the drive with a cd drive cleaner or blow some air into the drive, but honestly, if it's having this type of issue, you're just prolonging the replacement of the drive itself.

[pritchaa]

I often find that cheaper CDs are ignored quite often even if I *know* there is stuff on them. Try a few different CDR/CDRWs first - it may be as simple as the disk is a bit crap!

[ilyail3]

tnkz for the edvice pritchaa you were right, but what will I do with the corrupted disks
If I want to open them?