Thank you very much for your guidance, which should help many members who seem to be having problems with their 'matSHITa' Drivers.

For months I have been having the problem with my DVD drive that it could read any DVD-RW or CD-RW, but couldn't load any DVD-R or CD-R, and answer I got from the Vaio Support was to restore the system to a hardware profile before the problem started, which I didn't want to do.

Having seen your post today, I just cleaned the drive optics with Apple's, brilliant Moster iClean Kit and pushed the laser head to ends of its span several times.  The drive started working normal immediately!

Well, I shouted at my VaioBoy for the first time which might have helped a bit as well!

I suggest to anyone who is having similar problems to try the cleaning drill before trying anything else.

Thank you again.
A very relieved BrownPolar!

Your solution looks very attractive, BrownPolar, but I belong to those people who do not know how to span a laser head. I just completed a full recovery of the C en D drives, but that did not bring my CD-writer back to life. (Playing DVD's is no problem). After the system recovery I had to reinstall my printer and other programs, but for that I had to insert the original discs in the diskdrive! How did other people solve this problem? The only thing I knew to do is to buy an external drive to handle my disks. The laptop requires more than one lap now to be topped on...

Pianostem, VAIO PCG K315Z

Guys I have another kind of a problem... my Original DVDs are lagging... both sound and a view... I even bought lens cleaning dvd but didnt help... Those DVDs are brand new, no chance that they are the reason of lagging. It helps when I uninstall DVD drive and restart comp. but I am not about to do that over and over again ? ! plz help... FE21b, drive: Sony DVD RW-G520A

... I will go crazy if I ll need to give my laptop to a service since its my second part of mine ...

Hi, i have just purchased a SONY N11/M with the following dvd-rw : SONY aw-q540a .

It seems that I'm the only one in the world with this drive!  Can't find any support over the internet...

Sadly, it never worked... From the moment I received the notebook, my first thought was that it was not meant to write on DVD .. but it should !

It simply cannot recognize a empty dvd...

And it seems that there is no firmware available in the entire net.

Can you help me with this? I have already opened a case at vaio-link , but no response yet...

Thanks!

Please go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager and click on + beside IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.
this will pop down a list of 3 devices.
Right click on Primary IDE Channel and go down to properties.
Click on the Advanced Settings tab at the top.
You will have two Devices. Device 0 and Device 1.
Please insure that the transfer mode for both is set to DMA if available.
Also check that the current transfer mode is set to one of the ultra DMA modes.
Some of these options might not be available, that's ok, please move to the next step.

Once you have these changed click on the drivers tab at the top and click on the uninstall button near the bottom of this page.
Click on the OK button on the next window.
The unit will ask you if you want to restart the unit.Click on Yes.

The unit might ask you to restart the unit again once it has boot on.

Regards

Sony Vaio Team

I accidentally created a new thread with this post, but I'll post it here again for anyone to look over if they wish. I believe this is a very strange fault, certainly not one I've came accross fixing my own or anyone else's computer...

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Hi, I'm having a very strange problem with my Pioneer DVR-K15 which was supplied with my Vaio FS215M. Basically, the drive is accesible through the Command Prompt (copying files to the HDD works), and it will Autorun any media put into it without any problems, however it just will not open in Windows Explorer.

I've tried all the ways of getting in, from straight double-clicking to sneakily selecting it from the address bar, but it just does nothing. As if I hadn't even tried opening it. The same applies to right clicking and selecting "explore". I've searched for updated firmware and only found a patch that doesn't work. Also tried uninstalling the drive and rebooting, still no joy. VAIO Hardware Diagnostics also told me the drive had no errors.

Seeing as the problem arised just after the one year warranty expired, I tried and tried and eventually gave up. Just bought an external drive, which was cheaper than sourcing out another DVR-K15 and having the hassle of changing the bezel etc...

Just wondering if anyone was up for a challenge really, suggestions?

Hey Pianostem

Sorry I should have logged in earlier, and hope you are not now in more trouble than on the 10th of December, or you are just given up on the DVD drive and enjoying Christmas!

What I did was very simple. 

Just open the CD-DVD drive. There is movable metallic block next to the  wheel onto which you push CDs or DVDs, and it has a glass lens mounted on it.  Carefully push this block with a finger on its edge as far as it goes away from the wheel and push back towards the wheel, being careful not to touch the lens area.  Do this a couple of times, and then push it as far away from the wheel to the very end of its path and then load a DVD-R or a CD-R and close the drive.

If your problem is similar to mine, it should start working.  The problem I had, or may have again, is that the block (laserhead) doesn't move freely far enough to read the header info on a DVD-R or CD-R.  That is why I call this drive matSHITa!  I think Sony should find a better make and replace all these!

Good luck and merry Christmas.
BP

? Replacing DVDRW Please can anyone advise... I have a Vaio PCG-FR315S with DW-U50A DVDRW drive. I have had increasing problems with the drive since it was 14months old and have done the uninstall./reinstall software & drivers stuff. I do not use the drive at all now as it will only recognise a few prerecorded discs and little else. I am thinking of replacing the drive, can anybody tell me if there are limitations to models/brands that will fit my Vaio - I have added stuff to desktop PC's but not notebooks. ( I can replace the laptop cheaper than getting Sony to look at it, have tried the online support for last 18/12). I can get a Sony DW-Q58A slimline drive - wld it work/fit?? Any suggestions out there of where to go from here  .....