Hi,

Just bought my FE31M a few days ago, and tried to do a clean install with a winxp pro cd. Everything worked, installed the drivers, but could not get some buttons to work properly. So I used my recovery discs to get the factory state back up again. Worked fine and shut down my vaio.
Next day I start it up, and the dvd drive is not working. It's not showing up in windows explorer, with or without a disc in the drive.
In the device manager it states the drive's name:

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K16M

But with this message:

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

I deleted the recovery partition, so I can't reinstall everything, and I can't access the recovery dvd. I also can't find drivers on the internet.

What can I do?

*** UPDATE ***

Fixed, thanks to this solution.

When I reinstalled from the recovery discs, I also deleted a lot of software. A LOT! So also some cd/dvd recording software. Works great now. Thanks a lot!

hi my vaio model is pcc-grt 916z , thank you and only can write in 1x,2x and 4x DVDs

I have an fe21b with the SONY DVD RW G520A  drive and I've been having funny problems with it from the beginning. I've had it since August and initially it had no software to play a DVD movie on it. I installed PowerDVD and although it will play the sound is glitchy - like a stuttering? It's fine with audio CDs and also avi files too so it's not the sound card. It also takes a looooong time to write DVDs - I'm actually using Sony DVDs as well and it won't burn higher than 0.6x which is annoying when you have 4gb to burn! Also in games where there is a cutscene with a mini movie, the sound always become separated from the video, with the video seemingly running slower. It's almost like the sound doesn't pause when people are pausing in the coversation and it carries on regardless?

I've made sure that it is DMA enabled, I've tried cleaning it and moving the lens back and forth to make sure that the ribbon isn't catching so I'm a bit stumped.

I was a bit bemused also when I noticed that the driver for the drive itself is dated July 2001? Surely there must have been one for the firmware since then?!

I also thought I'd mention that I find it surprisingly difficult finding sony drivers ANYWHERE online. Also SonicStage doesn't work very well and media center (the progam) is always coming up with errors. Don't know if it's related but I'm just having a moan! Other than that it's a great laptop and I'd really like to sort it out really.

Thanks for the reply LEVELman. I think I might try uninstalling windvd perhaps then. Media center is really buggy - it keeps wanting to debug when I go into it. For some reason when I got it, when I tried to play a DVD it said that there was no decoder on it so neither media player nor windvd would actually play DVDs. Installing PowerDVD enabled me to play them but I still have problems so I'll carry on fiddling with it I think. If I sort it out I'll report back.

I know what you mean about the whole beginners thing - it doesn't bode very well!

Borntoend basically I believe you have exactly the same problem with dvd playback as me :) (both sound and video choppy, sometimes only sound...divx playback from HDD is fine... ) But I dont have any problems with Media center, IMO you have problems like viruses, mby some missing or corrupted media center files. I would try full system recovery. From my own experience I can also tell you that dvds are choppy in all players- windvd and windows media player but LESS in windvd. strange and annoying, makes a feeling that laptop you have bought has never been worth money you payed for it. (reminds me Apple policy (and I am angry cuz of fact that all other Sony products are perfect but not sure about Vaio anymore...)  )

dear,

so i have the same problem about the DVD.
My DVD/CD-ROM is  MATSHITA UJ-832D.
i have alredy read the post http://www.club-vaio.com/clubvaio/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=36996
but this is my situation:

1- my firmware is 1.7 and there is not firmware update(not in vaio link and not in web side)
2- i dont have a restore date so i can not come back.
3- in Device Manager hardware DVD working correctly, no error code and no yellow triangle
4- Tryed already to uninstall the driver and rebooting the system, no good results
5- change the brand TDK, Verbatim,ecc. dont change the result. I can try only with two software. no good resulds.
6- i no want to try liquid lens cleaner, my vaio is still in garanty. Why should be a lend problem when befoare everything worked perfettly?
8- well i shoud becakup my data by DVD burner, but it doent work. Why sould buy a HD external for a sony problem?

i would like to install a old driver but i dont undestand where is located the DVD driver in the "Original Drivers Package" (there are a lot of folders as audio,camera,ecc but not DVD or something like that.)

Please let me know what i should do now.
Please i need my DVD ready and working in next 15 days