Laptop DVD drive problems

50Twuncle

My wifes Acer Aspire Laptop has XP on it - the DVD drive won't work - it appears in the Device Manager correctly - but in "My Computer" - it shows as a DVD RAM drive - there appears to be no way of restoring it ??
I am trying to reinstall XP but without a DVD drive - this is extremely difficult ...
I have run MS FIX IT utility - but this does nothing ..
Any suggestions ?

NiftyDigits

Try booting Ubuntu via USB to test the drive.

What model of laptop?

victor2

You could try uninstalling it from Device Manager - make sure you actually remove it, don't just disable it. Then reboot and the system should auto detect it an install the necessary driver. That might just fix it and you've got little to lose.

50Twuncle

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Try booting Ubuntu via USB to test the drive.

What model of laptop?

Acer Aspire 5000

50Twuncle

victor2 wrote: »

You could try uninstalling it from Device Manager - make sure you actually remove it, don't just disable it. Then reboot and the system should auto detect it an install the necessary driver. That might just fix it and you've got little to lose.

Tried that - when it reboots - exactly the same happens (it is detected as a DVD ram drive)

NiftyDigits

Have you used the Try Ubuntu option as of yet?

victor2

Bet it doesn't have the option in the BIOS to boot off a USB device either.
You might have to take out the hard drive and put it in another machine and/or caddy to install XP on it. Haven't done it, but I think you have to make sure the contents of the XP disk are copied onto the drive so that it can configure itself for the original machine when put back in.
Hard to say if the DVD drive has developed a fault or it's a driver issue. Don't suppose there's any chance you could get hold of another drive for that machine and try it though.

Figment

Use another machine to copy the entire contents of the XP disk onto a USB memory stick, then either run it from the stick or copy/move the files onto the laptop then run it from the location you put the files.

NiftyDigits

No need for all that. Easy enough to restore XP without the optical disc drive working in Windows.
Just want to check that the drive works with Ubuntu.

To restore XP from DOS, reboot the computer and as it is restarting, press the F2 key. That will take you into the BIOS setup screen. Click on the MAIN tab and scroll down to D2D Recovery. Use the F5 or F6 key to set the value to Enabled.
Choose to save those settings and to exit.

When the machine is next restarting, press and hold ALT and whilst holding it down, press the F10 key.

If a password is requested for the Recovery, it is 000000

50Twuncle

victor2 wrote: »

Bet it doesn't have the option in the BIOS to boot off a USB device either.
You might have to take out the hard drive and put it in another machine and/or caddy to install XP on it. Haven't done it, but I think you have to make sure the contents of the XP disk are copied onto the drive so that it can configure itself for the original machine when put back in.
Hard to say if the DVD drive has developed a fault or it's a driver issue. Don't suppose there's any chance you could get hold of another drive for that machine and try it though.

No USB boot - it is about 6 years old !!
And no chance of a matching drive either...............

50Twuncle

NiftyDigits wrote: »

No need for all that. Easy enough to restore XP without the optical disc drive working in Windows.
Just want to check that the drive works with Ubuntu.

To restore XP from DOS, reboot the computer and as it is restarting, press the F2 key. That will take you into the BIOS setup screen. Click on the MAIN tab and scroll down to D2D Recovery. Use the F5 or F6 key to set the value to Enabled.
Choose to save those settings and to exit.

When the machine is next restarting, press and hold ALT and whilst holding it down, press the F10 key.

If a password is requested for the Recovery, it is 000000

The rebuild partition was deleted years ago !!