CD Drive Will Only Read DVDs

Purchased a Dell Dimension 5150 many months ago and so far everything gone without a hitch until last week. Tried to play CD Audio discs and the drive won't read them. Tried a couple games and the drive won't read them either. Play a DVD though and it works perfectly. I've gone through all the troubleshooting etc but I can't work out the problem. Haven't a clue why for all the time I've had it games and CDs have worked and now they won't. Says their are no driver problems or anything with the drive.

The drive is just a standard 16x DVD+/-RW Drive.
This is the information it displays in System Information:

Drive E:
Description CD-ROM Drive
Media Loaded No
Media Type CD-ROM
Name HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GWA4164B
Manufacturer (Standard CD-ROM drives)
Status OK
Transfer Rate Not Available
SCSI Target ID 0
PNP Device ID IDE\CDROMHL-DT-ST_DVD+-RW_GWA4164B_______________E113____\5&29A96F35&0&0.0.0
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys (5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158), 48.38 KB (49,536 bytes), 8/3/2004 10:59 PM)

 

There are two laser lenses. It sounds like the laser lens for the CD is dirty or bad.

 

Hi,

My name is Todd and I'm a customer advocate at Dell's corporate headquarters. We saw your post and I wanted to follow up on this issue. It does sound as if the secondary laser used to read CDs instead of DVDs is either faulty or dirty.

Have you been able to get the problem resolved? If not, feel free to email me at Customer_Advocate@Dell.com and I'll try to help. Please include my first name (Todd) in the subject line of the email so it can be routed to me quickly.

Thank you,

Todd

Customer Advocate
Dell, Inc.

 

Hi Steve,

This is a new way we're trying to help our customers. In fact, if you find someone on these forums that has tried contacting us regarding a technical issue, and haven't been able to get it resolved, they can use the following link.

https://support.dell.com/support/to...re/en/outstanding_issues_tech?c=us&l=en&s=gen

That will get them in contact with an email support group in our department that can help them. Feel free to give that link to anyone that needs additional help.

Thank you,

Todd

Customer Advocate
Dell, Inc.

 

Thanks for the help. I contacted Dell yesterday and they're sending out a new drive ASAP.

 

Well I ordered a new drive yesterday at 3.30pm and it came this morning at 9.30am. Simple case of swapping the drives over. Easy. Problem solved. I couldn't believe how quick the drive got here. Hats off to Dell. I know what computer I'll buying when I need a new one. Dell.