CD/DVD drives not reading discs

jinxcat

Distinguished
Oct 11, 2010
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18,510
I am really stressing out because I have no idea what's wrong or how to fix this. It started with my parent's desktop computer (windows XP), it randomly freezes and the computer says that there is no disc in the drive during a movie, or listening to CDs. We figured out that if we eject the disc several times it eventually works again, but obviously that's not very practical when it freezes every couple of minutes. It's completely random and can work for two seconds or half an hour, but it always stuffs up. The same thing happens to every CD and DVD, including brand new ones and ones that have worked on there before. I have scanned the computer and not found any viruses or malware. When I close the tray it makes a whirring noise for a while then stops, or if it works it whirs and then you can hear the disc loading. The drive is not brand new, but it's not really old either and I've used it many times without problems. I checked the power cords, they were fine and I was going to try cleaning the lens.

The real problem is though, that yesterday I got a second hand laptop (vista) and so I was excited that I could watch movies again... only now the same thing is happening!!!! I have used my portable hardrive between the two computers so I figure it has to be a virus or something, but none of the anti-virus programs or anything have found problems. I have used AVG and Malwarebytes on my parents desktop and Ad-Aware and Avast on my laptop . Please help. I can't find any information on this exact problem on the internet. I'm not that good with computers either so please give me specific instructions.