Latitude D610, DVD/CD ROM

After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device Manager.
Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Charles

In ,
Charles typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:07:27 -0600:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device
Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Hi Charles! That sure sounds like the optical drive is shot. A lot of
laptops it is very easy to replace the optical drive. And many of them
will take virtually any slimline optical drive.

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips. And
it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy protection. I
updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up replacing the drive and
I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I also have a few external USB optical drives. So this is another option
for you. They are handy to use as a second optical drive for laptops and
the main optical drive for netbooks.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 14:00:25 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
Charles typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:07:27 -0600:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device
Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Hi Charles! That sure sounds like the optical drive is shot. A lot of
laptops it is very easy to replace the optical drive. And many of them
will take virtually any slimline optical drive.

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips. And
it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy protection. I
updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up replacing the drive and
I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I also have a few external USB optical drives. So this is another option
for you. They are handy to use as a second optical drive for laptops and
the main optical drive for netbooks.


Bill, I couldn't have but laugh "but not at you". Why do I get the
feeling that many of us regulars on this newsgroup service our
families/extended families' pc and laptops g ? I know I do
sometimes and it's not necessarily on a voluntary basis even tho it's
still a free service .

Bill, not sure you have this already but maybe this will help...
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...0/en/index.htm

On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:25:53 -0600, "RnR" wrote:

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 14:00:25 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
Charles typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:07:27 -0600:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device
Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Hi Charles! That sure sounds like the optical drive is shot. A lot of
laptops it is very easy to replace the optical drive. And many of them
will take virtually any slimline optical drive.

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips. And
it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy protection. I
updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up replacing the drive and
I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I also have a few external USB optical drives. So this is another option
for you. They are handy to use as a second optical drive for laptops and
the main optical drive for netbooks.


Bill, I couldn't have but laugh "but not at you". Why do I get the

Excuse me Bill for my typo... (I'm under the weather today)

Bill, I couldn't help but laugh "but not at you". Why do I get the


feeling that many of us regulars on this newsgroup service our
families/extended families' pc and laptops g ? I know I do
sometimes and it's not necessarily on a voluntary basis even tho it's
still a free service .

Bill, not sure you have this already but maybe this will help...
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...0/en/index.htm

In ,
RnR typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:25:53 -0600:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 14:00:25 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
Charles typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:07:27 -0600:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I
realized last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD
drive and the drive will not open. Rebooted several times and
removed and replaced the drive also and no change. It also does
not show in Device Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything
else I can try?

Hi Charles! That sure sounds like the optical drive is shot. A lot of
laptops it is very easy to replace the optical drive. And many of
them will take virtually any slimline optical drive.

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips.
And it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy
protection. I updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up
replacing the drive and I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I also have a few external USB optical drives. So this is another
option for you. They are handy to use as a second optical drive for
laptops and the main optical drive for netbooks.

Bill, I couldn't have but laugh "but not at you". Why do I get the
feeling that many of us regulars on this newsgroup service our
families/extended families' pc and laptops g ? I know I do
sometimes and it's not necessarily on a voluntary basis even tho it's
still a free service .

Yes so true. Plus I read your later post and I read it actually as you
meant it. Funny how that happens, eh?

Bill, not sure you have this already but maybe this will help...
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...0/en/index.htm

Yes that helps a lot. Gee that is so easy to remove the optical drive.
Many thanks! grin

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 17:23:57 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
RnR typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:25:53 -0600:
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 14:00:25 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
Charles typed on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:07:27 -0600:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I
realized last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD
drive and the drive will not open. Rebooted several times and
removed and replaced the drive also and no change. It also does
not show in Device Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything
else I can try?

Hi Charles! That sure sounds like the optical drive is shot. A lot of
laptops it is very easy to replace the optical drive. And many of
them will take virtually any slimline optical drive.

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips.
And it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy
protection. I updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up
replacing the drive and I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I also have a few external USB optical drives. So this is another
option for you. They are handy to use as a second optical drive for
laptops and the main optical drive for netbooks.

Bill, I couldn't have but laugh "but not at you". Why do I get the
feeling that many of us regulars on this newsgroup service our
families/extended families' pc and laptops g ? I know I do
sometimes and it's not necessarily on a voluntary basis even tho it's
still a free service .

Yes so true. Plus I read your later post and I read it actually as you
meant it. Funny how that happens, eh?

Bill, not sure you have this already but maybe this will help...
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...0/en/index.htm

Yes that helps a lot. Gee that is so easy to remove the optical drive.
Many thanks! grin


Bill, you are more than welcome. You've helped me a lot in the past
too.

Charles wrote:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device Manager.
Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Charles
Charles,

If the CD/DVD device does not show in the Device Manager, it may well
have bitten the dust. Before giving up on it and buying a replacement,
make sure that it is completely inside its drive bay. There is a small
chance that it is making intermittent contact. On the bottom of the
D610 (and D600 and Inspiron 600m and several other similar models) there
is a single screw that holds the drive in place. If this screw is gone,
the drive can slide out just a tiny bit or even more.

The D610 and similar models do not use a CD/DVD drive with a flat
plastic bezel. Instead, they use a drive with a curved bezel, and you
are better off with a replacement made for this series of Dell laptops.
The single screw needs to be removed to release the drive from its
drive bay. You can open the drive by pushing a small paper clip
(straightened) straight into the small hole in the drive bezel. The
drive tray will then pop out a little bit, and you can pull gently on
the drive tray to remove the whole drive.

You can get replacement drives in good condition from reputable sellers
on eBay. Fortunately, Dell parts are inexpensive and easy to find on
eBay, unlike other brands with smaller market share. Once the drive is
removed, the sticker with its Dell part number is visible. Buy the same
part number, or possibly a compatible DVD-RW if it suits your purpose...
Ben Myers

Hi!

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips. And
it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy protection.

Is it really any DVD?

The drive itself shouldn't really care, it only relays the encrypted data
for the decoder to handle. Some of the more "interesting" approaches to DVD
copy protection (Sony's ARccOS would be one) will give a DVD decoder a
reason to head for the hills. You might try a newer decoder program?

One has to wonder why they dream this stuff up. It does *nothing* to stop
real piracy, foils "soft" piracy for only a while, and only frustrates the
legitimate customer.

I updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up replacing the drive
and I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I'd have to think that it would come out easily, as many Latitude models
have removable drives. On some models, there is a security screw that goes
into the bottom of the machine and locks the release lever for the
drive/module so it won't come out.

William

Ben Myers wrote:


Charles wrote:
After some extensive traveling the past week with my laptop I realized
last night that the light is on constantly on the CD/DVD drive and the
drive will not open. Rebooted several times and removed and replaced
the drive also and no change. It also does not show in Device
Manager. Have I lost it or is there anything else I can try?

Charles
Charles,

If the CD/DVD device does not show in the Device Manager, it may well
have bitten the dust. Before giving up on it and buying a replacement,
make sure that it is completely inside its drive bay. There is a small
chance that it is making intermittent contact. On the bottom of the
D610 (and D600 and Inspiron 600m and several other similar models) there
is a single screw that holds the drive in place. If this screw is gone,
the drive can slide out just a tiny bit or even more.

The D610 and similar models do not use a CD/DVD drive with a flat
plastic bezel. Instead, they use a drive with a curved bezel, and you
are better off with a replacement made for this series of Dell laptops.
The single screw needs to be removed to release the drive from its
drive bay. You can open the drive by pushing a small paper clip
(straightened) straight into the small hole in the drive bezel. The
drive tray will then pop out a little bit, and you can pull gently on
the drive tray to remove the whole drive.

You can get replacement drives in good condition from reputable sellers
on eBay. Fortunately, Dell parts are inexpensive and easy to find on
eBay, unlike other brands with smaller market share. Once the drive is
removed, the sticker with its Dell part number is visible. Buy the same
part number, or possibly a compatible DVD-RW if it suits your purpose...
Ben Myers

The D610 DVD is easily removable. It's made to swap out with the
optional floppy drive unit. The bezel on the unit is likely removable.
Almost (if not all) laptops have a removable bezel. I just replace the
drive in my daughter's HP laptop. It was a bit tricky to remove the
bezel, and you want to be VERY careful, since the plastic used on them
is not very flexible and will only bend a few times.

I recommend www.ultradrives.com. They were very good to deal with and
shipped very promptly.

Good luck!
Phil

In ,
William R. Walsh typed on Mon, 4 Jan 2010 02:00:19 -0600:
Hi!

I am working on my niece's D610 and her optical drive is a Philips.
And it is currently having problems with any DVD with copy
protection.

Is it really any DVD?

It appears so. As it fails to load Sims2 and Sims3 games on DVD (they
are copy protected) and any copy protected DVD media quits just seconds
before the one hour mark. Non-copy protected DVD flies right on through.

The drive itself shouldn't really care, it only relays the encrypted
data for the decoder to handle. Some of the more "interesting"
approaches to DVD copy protection (Sony's ARccOS would be one) will
give a DVD decoder a reason to head for the hills. You might try a
newer decoder program?

I ran Nero DiscSpeed on the drive. Copy protected DVDs would fail and
non-protected ones flew right on by with flying colors. And my niece
wanted to play Sims3 on her Dell D610. And half way through the install,
it would complain it couldn't read a file. I clicked on ignore and it
would continue for awhile and the same error and file. Repeat a few more
times and 5 hours later the progress bar would be at 100%, but it won't
ever finish.

I threw an external USB optic drive and it installed in 20 minutes
without any problems. It also played copy protected DVD movie disc just
fine too on the external.

You would think the drive wouldn't care about copy protection, but some
drives do. There are many cases of some drives don't like some copy
protection. I have one copy protected audio CD that will stop after the
seventh song on some players. Even if you have repeat set.

One has to wonder why they dream this stuff up. It does *nothing* to
stop real piracy, foils "soft" piracy for only a while, and only
frustrates the legitimate customer.

They seem to back off a bit when it frustrates the legitimate customer
too much. Plus I feel they make extra money from copy protection from
legitimate customers. Maybe that is why they do it. As I and I bet many
other customers end up buying retail copies of the same thing over and
over again.

Like my niece thought her Sims3 disc was bad and went out and bought
another brand new one. Her original one wasn't bad in this case, but I
bet people buy extra copies all of the time like this. And sometimes the
original one does goes bad.

This also happens with Windows too. As many still has the recovery disc
that came with their computer. But since they upgraded something, like
the sound card or video card. Now the branded Windows recovery disc may
not even be able to boot up. As the drivers are now wrong. So what do
the legitimate user usually do? Go out and buy a retail version of
Windows, when they shouldn't have to do this. Sad isn't it?

I updated the firmware, but no help. I may end up replacing the drive
and I welcome any hints how to on a D610.

I'd have to think that it would come out easily, as many Latitude
models have removable drives. On some models, there is a security
screw that goes into the bottom of the machine and locks the release
lever for the drive/module so it won't come out.

Yes it does come out very easy. Thanks again.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 2 of 3 - Windows XP SP3