Failing Cd Drive?

[Nashida]

Before I start I'd better give some background specs. I'm using a Dell Latitude D620, a laptop I bought as a freshman through the school's program. At the monet, it's Windows XP Pro for an OS, with SP3 currently installed. I have a CD/DVD burner drive as well.

So the problem started last Saturday after I picked up Metallica's new album. I was eager to rip it to my computer and get the tracks on my iPod. But when I popped the disk in the drive I could only rip up to track 4 before it declared there was an error. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the CD, but I could play it just fine. Ripping was odd.

Then it started acting weird. Sometimes I'd be lucky if the drive spat my CD back out. I can eject the drive manually, and it often took 2-3 tries of doing that to get it to give me my disc back, occasionally with a reboot of the laptop itself.

I was able to get the CD burned, but I had to have a friend burn it on her computer and IM me the files. I think this is just really odd considering I just burned a CD for the newspaper with a bunch of archived files on it, and it was working fine just before that. Can I fix this on my own? Was this maybe just a bit of a drive burp? Or is this a more serious problem? This is the first time this has happened.

[SteeleDragon78]

few quick questions, when this happened, were you on battery or ac.
any grinding noises or other "funny" noises.
if it burns dvd's has this issue occurred with that media.
and finally, any impacts or hits to the machine, no matter how light.

there is a possibility that it could be a borked file, in the drivers and such, though if it plays fine it should rip fine too. the ejecting issue does worry me. if your feeling adventurous you might see if you can find a replacement and swap it out. or take it to a trusted friend. if its still under warranty have dell do it.

but we can cross that bridge when we get there.

[Nashida]

Okay, here's some answers:

1) I very rarely run my laptop on its battery anymore, it has an AC cord plugged into a power strip. At the time of the problem, it was plugged in to its strip.
2)There weren't any grinding noises, but the little green light on the side of the drive would go off, and wouldn't light up if I pressed the eject button.
3)It can read DVDs, but I am unsure of the burning. I know it can burn CDs. To be honest, I've never really tried to burn a DVD with it.
4)If there were any impacts to it, it'd be when it travels with me in my messenger bag and bumps me in the side or when I set the bag down.

I had my trusty geek friend come over with a music CD just to see, and not only did it rip all 20 tracks on the CD, it (gasp) ejected it when the button was pressed. I did use one of those laser cleaning CDs with the little brushes on the underside of the disc before the rip this time around, so I wonder if that somehow helped?

If I had to replace it, it will still be under warranty. I bought an insurance plan with the computer that is good as long as I don't try to modify it myself and I'm still attending the college. It's basically a 4-5 year warranty.

[Bandit]

Odds are it's DRM issue. Metallica has been know to be a very strong supporter of DRM and it would not be surprising if the CD installed some sort of anti-ripping software on your computer.

See HERE for what Sony tried to do. They got caught.

B

[Broomjockey]

I was going to suggest it's DRM as well. Metallica was the band who basically spear-headed the anti-Napster movement. And DRM can do some seriously eff'd up things to a computer.

[Nashida]

I see. But if it was DRM, how was my friend who has the same laptop able to rip the whole CD while I couldn't? That's what's concerning me.

I had thought it was DRM when it first happened, but then the computer wouldn't spit the disc back out and I knew something else had to be going on.

[Broomjockey]

Same laptop, but can you guarantee that it's every single program exactly the same, same versions of everything? Because it only takes one program to be slightly different for their crap to have a vastly different effect. On yours, it plays havok with the drivers for your optical drive. On your friend's, it can't manage to, because that vulnerability is missing/altered just enough.

[MrSmiley]

I'm pretty sure if it was DRM I'd be able to find out more info about it through google of similar issues. From what I've been able to gather from a quickie search... it seems that the Metallica's Death Magnetic album specifically does not have DRM... and this was kindof a big deal in the blogosphere since it's Metallica. *shrug*

I myself suspect that maybe for whatever reason the particular disc is made in a way that's giving your cd-rom a harder time reading is consistantly. I know on my own systems I've had eject buttons occasionally "lock up" because the computer got stuck in a process of trying to read from it and encountering problems. I might even try to swap it with another copy at the store on the offchance that would work.

I dunno, it's been awhile but I used to have a cd burner that was completely incapable of reading discs whose bottom were gold. Luckily I only encountered a couple of these, among them a package of CD-Rs I bought on discount. Not saying it's the same as your problem... but just pointing out that there are sometimes odd things that can happen where the reading/writing isn't 100%

[digilight]

Honestly Factory made CDs (Not CDR's) are all made the exact same way with no real differences. It is basically done thru injection molding and this creates a clear plastic disc with the information on it. Then they apply the substrate which is the shiny layer on the top of the disc (it will go underneath the label) then the label is screen printed on top of that and flashed between colors.

I would expect that it was either a hiccup or a minor issue with the disc itself that your drive doesn't like. When the drive reads the disc it may also encounter disc errors, how it interprets those errors and deals with them could be what happened here.

For example if your laser is extra sensative then it may not deal well with a minor defect on the disc or even a simple smudge/piece of dust. Also your drive may be a different brand then his (even though they are dell, they are rebadged versions of different drives) you may have a NEC while he has a Pioneer for example.

I wouldn't worry to much unless it happens again.

Also, is there any software on the CD that is trying to load or install at the same time. You may want to try popping the disc in and waiting a while before you try and rip. It could have been a memory issue here as well.