trouble with D drive
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trouble with D drive
| Sun, 08-22-2004 - 8:35pm |
I need some help with my elderly mothers computer. She only uses it to email relatives and play a wheel of fortune cd rom (lol). Anyway, several times lately her computer has frozen up. Then when she went to play her game it kept saying she needed the cd rom in the drive and it was already in there. I tried uninstalling the game and when I tried to reinstall it I get a message the D drive is not ready. I noticed she does not have any virus protection either. Could this be a virus? Or a bad D Drive? Just want to make sure it's not something stupid before I take into the shop.
Patty

It's possible, Patty, that the CD itself is damaged.
If the answer is YES, then the CD player has shutdown from an overheat. Many OEM CD players on PC have thermally protected motors. When they get hot they stop working. Do this enough times and they die. Pretty much standard on OEM equipment.
If the answer is NO then it is a Buffer under run issue. What does this mean in english. Is that the CD player has a built in memory and that the memory is full. To clear it you need to power off and on. You can only otherwise repair this issue by getting a cd player with more memory and buffer under run protection usually on higher priced cd reader-writers.
Both these issues will cause the PC to freeze.
Ed
CD players need to be cleaned occasionally - just like the old music tape decks.
You can pick up a CD drive cleaner, a CD disk with a tiny brush on it, to clean off the lens.
Chemicals in your PC are a big NONO! They shorten the life of of your equipment can damage a laser and cause a fire. Cleaning should be done only one way, buy a can of compressed air. then spray away. You made a big investment protect it. Most CD discs themselves can work fine with a gazillion scratches,most good discs have a pretty resiliant outer later and can take years of abuse. The deep gouges are what will damage the disc.
Tape decks, vcr's and 8track tapes are different they make physical contact with a composite material and need to be physically cleaned with chemicals or the mag head needs to be replaced.
The new 300 plus watt power supplies on todays PC's act like a heat lamp. Users clean internal components with solvents and alcohol then plug the PC back in and power up. The vapors alone from this stuff is easisly igniteable in a virtual flash.
Ed
Just for clarification, the device I am recommending is a CD disk with a tiny brush on it which cleans the optical lens when inserted into
Karen
Mom to Kristen (17) Chloe (7) & Connor (6)