4430s dvd rom not reading

[jbeiler]

I have four of these old 4430s probooks.  All four of these have the same problem, so it does not seem to be a hardware issue.  Somehow the read capability of the dvd rom has been disabled.  The drive shows up in device manager, but will not read a cd or dvd.  Can someone please help me with this problem?  

[WAWood]

@jbeiler 

You said "old" notebooks -- so one thing in common with all of them is probably the age -- and that makes this likely a hardware issue.

The DVD lens gets dirty over time and eventually, it gets so dirty that the laser can not clearly project to the disk.  When this happens, you need to buy a DVD "cleaning kit" which is basically a disk with fiber whiskers on it which, when rotated, brush against the lens and clean it.  They use to be around $20 USD.

[jbeiler]

Thanks for the reply, but as I said, I have four of these notebooks.  DVD roms are all squeaky clean; I think they have never been used, because they won't read the contents of CD or DVD.   Similar problem with the SD card reader; but the USB ports do work.  Same problem on all 4 notebooks.  -- Jon.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@jbeiler 

Then, about all you can do is run the HP diagnostics and see if those check the optical drive.

To run the diagnostics, press the Esc key repeatedly while rebooting and when the HP Startup Menu appears, press F2 to run the diagnostics.

[jbeiler]

Thanks - I think you are right.  Not sure of the provenance of these computers.  They may have been rejected at some point because some components didn't work.