IBM T61 cd drive not working.

[Jglenn4]

A few months ago my computer crashed and i got the bad blue screen and it took me a while just to figure out how to get my computer back up and running. It is now running alright but my cd drive does not work. It will play DVD's but not CD's. Anyone know of anything i could try to get it to work?

[Midknyte]

If it plays DVDs but not CDs, it's likely that the CD laser went bad.

Did you try booting to CDs as well as playing them through Windows?

[Jglenn4]

what do you mean booting to cd's?

[Midknyte]

Booting a CD means that you take a bootable CD like a Windows XP installation disc and boot from it, rather than your hard drive. Other bootable CDs would include Linux discs or diagnostics like Seagate Seatools.

[Jglenn4]

oh ok. i havent tried that but i dont hvae any bootable cds.

[Midknyte]

I'm still leaning towards the CD laser being dead. I've seen it happen a bunch of times.

[Jglenn4]

ok. do you know of a way that i could test it or something?

[Midknyte]

ok. do you know of a way that i could test it or something?

Yes, what I just told you. If you tried a CD in Windows and from boot and it still doesn't work, then it's a pretty sure sign that the CD laser is bad. you can try reseating or cleaning the drive also.