Cannot read or write to DVD/CD burner.

[bukulu]

I have an HP Pavillian Media Center m8430f Desktop PC, with Visa 64 Home Premium operating system. It has a DVD RW AD 7201S5, Optiarc DVD RW drive that suddenly stopped working. The computer recognizes that the drive is there, but cannot open or read any DVD/CD - it clicks a bit, then a message comes  up telling me to insert a readable disk, and opens the drive for me to do so. I have tried every kind of disk, including installation disks and disks formated previously on this computer - and it doesn't work.I have uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, uninstalled and reinstalled the software and followed all steps in the help centre on my computer, but to no avail. Nothing changes. I have tried to update the driver and firmware but when I try to install the downloads I get a message "Your system does not meet the minimum requirements. Update has been cancelled (995)" - when in fact my system does.

This happened very recently.The only thing I can think of that might (or might not) have some connection to this problem is that  I installed Canon software to download pictures from my Canon D50 onto my computer.

Please advise.  Or should I say help! 

Thanks.

[AWHITWORTH]

I will attach a link to a troubleshoting document for this issue. If this does not resolve the issue you could TRY a restore to befor the issue started occurring, or a recovery MIGHT do the trick if it is not an actual hardware failure in the optical drive. The clicking concerns me that it might be a hardware issue... is it the typical clicking that you will hear when a disc is initially being read or is it a more aggressive clicking??

There is a fix in this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116 that has you go in and delete the upper and lower filters in the registry. It is a little tricky, so I suggest you follow it WORD for WORD once you are actually in the registry.

I have seen deleting the upper and lower filters resolve most optical drive issues that were not hardware related.

[bukulu]

burner is now working. After trying all 'fixes' - and absolutely nothing worked, I removed the drive, thinking it must have died. Then I opened up the cover of the DVD/CD unit itself to examine it and found a round piece of hard foam material with a hole in the centre that had completely dislodged. (Likely it had been under the spinning mechanism to cushion it). It had a tiny drop of dried glue on one side- and ended up in a place where it made so sense for it to be, and bent.  In any case, I removed it from the unit entirely, put the burner back into the computer and voila! - everything worked perfectlly. Problem solved. So sometimes it helps to make a last ditch effort.

[ronotwy]

i did this and steel will not work