CD DRIVE PROBLEM ON VGN-AR71M

[cannalla]

My laptop (VGN-AR71M) exactly two years old, has from last week refused to accept any dvds or cds which I have been using previously. There is no sound either.

E-mailed Sony Store in desperation and they said:

You  will receive a personal response from our Customer Service Team within one  working day.
Please do not reply to this email, it is an automated  response. 

But still waiting.

I had used the cd drive only 18 times - and two of them were for  burning one of which was to create recovery discs.

Does anyone know whether the CD drive is somehow linked to the sound system please?

Any help will be appreciated by an old man.

CN

Wallington.

[Blencogo]

Hi CN,

Have a look in Device Manager -> DVD/CD-ROM Drives and see if your drive has a yellow warning ! next to it.  If so, double-click on it and give me the ERROR CODE.

Can you also let me know also what drive is listed there?

I presume you are still using the original Vista Operating System?  There is a firmware update available for the UJ-120B drive here: -

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/updates/index.aspx?m=VGN-AR71M&l=en_GB

I presume you have looked at the audio settings in Control Panel to check nothing is muted?  Do headphones work?

You could also try reinstalling the original sound driver but you need to find out which soundcard you have installed because there are two types of sound drivers available here: -

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/preinstalled/index.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VGN-AR71M

Look in Device Manager -> Sound, Video and Games Controllers to see if you have the Sigmatel Codec installed.  If so reinstall the Sigmatel Driver.

[cannalla]

Checked out device manager and there is NO yellow warning light or error code.

The drive  is (Blue Ray Disc Combo ) Optiarc BD Rom BC-5500 ATA device

Version 6.0.6002.18005.

I have been able to make copies of the Recovery discs. After clicking on the burning software, the source disc was not recognised at the start but after about a few  seconds, the process was concluded successfully for all three recovery discs. The copies have been verified on my desktop and found to be okay. The copies were made in the hope that it would boot up – BUT SADLY NO LUCK.  The drive is not accepting the discs.

So if the drive works and is able to burn discs, then obviously  the hardware is mechanically and electrically sound and functioning.  Can one assume then that it is a software fault?  Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

The problem is that the new recovery discs (or the old ones) are not recognised by the optical drive!!!   So, how does one reinstall the rescue discs?

Yes it is the original Vista 7 OS.  All Devices confirmed as working correctly.

Audio setting/headphones all okay.

There are two cards shown  under sound, video and game controllers viz:

SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec.

Realtek High Definition Audio

To reinstall the sound driver, I reckon I will have to uninstall first. Then with what do I re-install?   HAVE NOT DONE THIS SORT OF THING BEFORE !

I wonder whether one could  get some help on this from Sony Vaio people and if so, who do I approach please?

Thanks and best regards

CN