SONY VAIO A217M - 8 Months old and DRD-RW is now Dead

[Mikeuk2004]

Bought this in december and now the DVD RW Dual Layer drive is dead, wont read any CDs/DVDS and burns DVD's and CD's with errors.

Does not suprise me as the Playstaions DVD players are very poor too. My PS2 stopped reading DVDs Films/Games after 13 months.

Now im screwed with a Laptop with no DVD drive. Cant reinstall or install anything.

You would expect a reliable drive after paying £1400 on a laptop.

Gonna buy a HP next time. And a XBOX 360 as Sony DVD drives are very unreliable.

[TygerTyger]

Well just don't wait for the warranty to expire, send it in now! It doesn't matter if your official warranty period expires and the drive breaks again, parts and repairs have their own individual warranties.

[kee-lo_]

TT and James are right, don'r wait - act now

(that sounds like an infomercial)

[inectarios]

Well I have the DW-55A which is more or less the same except its not Dual Layer. I didn't have any particular problems with it so far...pretty satisfied I must say. The only problem I've noticed is sometimes when I create copies of my original DVD-Videos the damn thing just refuses to read the copy-DVD, while every other DVD player in the house plays it fine. I've heard that this is one of those "Sony-we-are-alone-on-this-planet" protection cr4p and many ppl have experienced problems like that with DVD, CD players etc...

Bottom line...never buy Sony optical drives.

So..despite the fact that my drive works fine im changing it with a Slim Pioneer or NEC one... You can find one of these for around 40 -50 quid, provided that you are comfortable with opening up your laptop...

As far as the PS2 is concerned...well I think Sony has set a new standard for cheap-quality products.

[mysonylaptop]

Hi,

I have Vaio FS1 95XP and am experiencing the same problems too. When I run a CD/DVD sometimes it works fine and sometimes it gives a kind of strange noice in the drive. I think it is trying to read and this noise/sound goes on and on. I still have 5-6 months of warranty left. Can you suggest me anything.

[angry]

The DVD-RW on my K215Z has just died - it refuses to read any type of disc. A £1300 notebook, and less than 2 weeks AFTER my warranty has run out while I was away on holiday.

Not impressed.

The e-support site is down yet again, and no-one appears to sell parts. The replacement cost if I can find one is going to be prohibitive no doubt.

Has anyone any suggestions? I'm happy to open the thing up and fit a replacement if someone knows of a good source.

Thanks in anticipation -

[jammold]

@angry:
The thing is with e-support is that the site can be quite volatile.

You could try ringing VAIO-Link directly, and asking them if there is anything they can do, however, before you get this far, you may be charged the £12.50 out-of-warranty-assistance fee...

A good source for help in opening these laptops can be found at the unofficial sister site to this called VAIO-Village and they might be able to help you.

@mysonylaptop:
You should try first of all testing the drive with a CD/DVD audio lens cleaner, the dry type is the type you should use. Theyare about £5.00 and it is not money wasted if this doesn't work because it might save your bacon later.

it does seem to be a hardware problem, but back up all of your most vital stuff, then you should preform a full system recovery. Sony will insist you do this before sending in the unit anyway.

If you still get no joy, send it in to VAIO-Link ASAP (create an e-support case online, of if that is not possible, call VAIO-Link - the details can be found in my signature below).

If you send your laptop away, 99.99% of the time it will be sent to Germany so therefore it may take a few weeks for the repair to take place.

They send you (via UPS) a cardboard box with foam inserts. Take these out, and put only the laptop in the box until it fits snugly and securely. Tape the box shut and then ring the number given in the letter included with the box to arrange to pick it up.

It does run like clockwork mostly. be prepared to part with your computer for a long time, and be assured that Sony will do their best to fix this.

Turn-around time on average can be as little as a few days to 6 weeks or more. Most importantly:

BACK ALL THE DATA ON YOUR PC UP TO DVD!!!

Sony may have to delete the data on the hard disk to do a system recovery, even if the problem is not related to Windows.

[angry]

Thanks James,

The lens cleaner option hasn't worked - first thing I tried. Did all the other usual things. If it wasn't for the DVD-RW I've networked from my desktop machine I would be stuffed - if the drive on the notebook ain't working I can't back it up - I suppose I'm lucky in that respect.

I'll try to post a e-support note and see what the response is.

Leighton (aka angry)

[jammold]

No problem angry. You are most welcome. :smileygrin:

That is an excellent idea, and that is the same setup I use in an emergency, to burn a DVD on a remote networked computer.

Good luck with sending it in to Sony. Hopefully it will be a speedy repair. Be prepared for a few answerphone messages from VAIO-Link too!:smileywink:

If you have no luck with e-Support, then ring VAIO-link instead, and write down the case reference number they give you. This number is very useful as it is used in all correspondance fron Sony. I think the opening hours for the phone line are Monday-Friday 9am-6pm.

The number can be found if you follow the link to VAIO-Link in my signature below.

Once again, good luck.:smileygood_luck:

[Akademius]

Well, this discussion about the dvd drive in a vaio helped me such a lot ! Yesterday my (guess which model...) DW-D56A died and no firmaware update could make it work again.

So i searched in this forum for help and now decided to make use of my warranty i still have. The idea of data saving by using a network cable is indeed very helpful! Thats the only way to save my data because unfortunately my dvd-RW player does not work...