Compaq Presario F700, DVDRom Problem

[jlg6184]

Hello, I have a Laptop I am working on for my brother, who is in the Navy. When I received it, that hard drive was corrupt, and he had nothing he wanted saved, so I just went ahead and wiped it and reformated. I reinstalled Windows Vista without much of a problem. I just finished all of the available updates, and am troubleshooting other issues (I believe he has a bad stick of RAM).

Anyway, I went to install a bit of software, and couldn't get the DVDRom recognize anything. It has power, and spins the disc, but is unrecognized in the OS. I checked Device Manager, and nothing was there either. I rebooted, and checked the BIOS. The BIOS has no place where it recognizes individual drives, just the ATAPI CDROM in the boot order. So out of curiosity, I tried to throw a Live Linux disk in and set the bios to boot to CDRom first, it didn't boot to the disk, but went into Windows instead. I tried again, and selected the option to choose which device to boot to, and the DVDRom isn't listed. I know that it worked, because I was able to install Windows. I also tried another DVDRom out of another, working Compaq, and had the same results. I have been going at this for a little while now, and am taking a break, and figured I would pose the question here, to see if there is something I may be overlooking.

[SmithFamilyDesigns]

Push the drive in harder. Had that issue on several makes/models. If that resolves the issue, remove the drive and adjust the retaining bracket

[jlg6184]

Originally Posted by SmithFamilyDesigns

Push the drive in harder. Had that issue on several makes/models. If that resolves the issue, remove the drive and adjust the retaining bracket

I have tried pushing it in harder as well, and to no avail. It is making enough of a connection to power the drive, and spin it, it just is not recognizing. I will try pushing it in a bit harder though to see if I can get it to work.

[stevenamills]

You might try yanking the drive and using a USB version. Periodically, that works for me.

[jlg6184]

Originally Posted by stevenamills

You might try yanking the drive and using a USB version. Periodically, that works for me.

Yeah, I thought of that as well, but I don't have one at the moment, and my brother is not very likely to buy one. I can install anything and finish up my tests without a functional CD-Rom, but I would prefer to know what is causing the problem as opposed to just ignoring it and shipping it to him (he is in California, whereas I am in IL). He likely won't be all that happy if it gets there and goes out in a few days because the problem I thought was CDRom related ended up being something else entirely. While he isn't paying me anything, he is my brother, and I would prefer this thing not to crap out if it is something I can prevent.

[SmithFamilyDesigns]

Another thought: is this the nvidia chipset? The faulty chipset symptoms did include dvd/wifi/sound issues as well. May want to see if its an affected model.

[jlg6184]

Originally Posted by SmithFamilyDesigns

Another thought: is this the nvidia chipset? The faulty chipset symptoms did include dvd/wifi/sound issues as well. May want to see if its an affected model.

Yes, this is an nVidia chipset, 7000M /nforce 610M I belive.