Laptop DVD Drives

[SMP]

Can anyone offer any advice on the following.

We run two Sony Vaio laptops here and the DVD drives are starting to randomly play up. They seem to burn discs alright but don't always play back. If I burn a CD, other PC's can read the data ok but my laptop seems to think the disc is blank and ready to burn.

The internal drive is a Sony - DW-U54a - Looking on Google etc it is no longer available new. Nowhere seems to list an equivalent.

Are laptop DVD writers universal to that extent ? Can I pick anyone off here for example ?

Any assistance greatly appreciated as this is now getting to be a real pain.

SMP

[Marki]

I had a problem like this where my pc thought there was no cd in the drive
when i wanted to burn one and had just put a blank in , it turned out to be a virus of some sort

[ThePassenger]

Yes, I would first hit your system like an angry god and make sure not a trace of virus, malware or indeed copy protection idiocy remains.

If the drives are still playing up then, yep. They're a universal part and quite easy to swap. You'll need to play with screw drivers.

Basically, get the replacement unit and pop out the old one (this can be easy, unscrew something and push a clip... or difficult and require removing the keyboard and death from above.. Sony's are normally pains). Strip the drive of the caddy/converter stuff that it'll be wrapped in and screw that lot on to the new drive. Push it back in and reverse the removal procedure. Done.

When buying the new parts make sure you don't buy anything SATA (yep, you can get SATA laptop drives) so look for things marked PATA or IDE or ATA100 that are the right form factor.

FYI: Laptop Hard Drives are also a universal part. In case you were wondering.

[SMP]

Thanks for the advice - Sounds like it could be time for a good all round clean up first !

SMP