So I built my computer about a year ago and have had no problems with my drive which is a plextor 712-A. Anyway one day when i was using the computer the drive stopped reading the disk that was in the drive. On the my computer screen it shows the drive and has a generic disk icon but when clicked on shows the drive as being empty. I realized that if i restart the computer it will detect the disk in the drive and use it normally but if the drive is opened and and then closed again with this disk or any other it will fail to read it further. I have downloaded new firmware and rechecked all the cable connections. I suspected the drive may be defective so I put in a different drive and it has the same problem. I am at a complete loss as to what is wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Just to make sure check the jumper settings on the drives.

I have a 3 yr old Teac burner that came w my dell that is acting up also. Sometimes it doesnt want to read a disc, last week it refused to spit one out. I had to put a paperclip in the release hole.

If another drive doesnt work, then maybe you should also check the jumper settings on the new one. I mess this up every time I put a new drive in. Try it with every setting. The errors you are seeing sound like a jumper problem.

If not, reset the CMOS or flash the BIOS. Thats good.

Oooh, run memtest for at least an hour preferably more.


Post your whole specs mainly the mobo and the ram.

Good Luck na dhow much did you pay for that Plextor??

I already tried flashing the BIOS and that did not change anything. I put my original Plextor drive back in the computer which acted exactly the same as the replacement samsung. I looked at the jumpers and they were set as master on both drives which is correct since the IDE plugs directly into the mobo. I havn't tried a memtest since i seriously doubt this is a RAM problem but I'll try it anyway.
My specs
ASUS A8N-SLI
Athlon 64 x2 dual core 3800
Radeon x1800
1 GB RAM
Plextor 712A

Im stumped

Are you using more then one burning software? If so uninstall all of them and see if your Dvd drive works.