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    Dell 1537 has choppy DVD reading

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by Schmi Daniel the Man, Jul 7, 2010.

  1. Schmi Daniel the Man

    Schmi Daniel the Man Notebook Consultant

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    I recently picked up a refurbished Dell 1537 with no operating system off of EBAY and when i it arrived today - i tried to run a LINUX distro on it to test it's performance, but it would not read. I tried 5 different disks untill i threw in a win 7 beta biuld 7000 in it and that was the only disk that it read. I even tried to boot from a sd card - but with no luck. Any suggestions as to how I can fix this Problem. I am worried as to how well the cd reader (really a DVD +-RW) will perform in the future being I have had issues in 1 day (had to restart 20+ times and throw in 7+ different disks) as to how it runs reading wise. I am planning on reselling this computer and I am aware of how difficult it would be to sell this if i am unable to have a working optical drive. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

    I get a message after a failed cd read that states this:

    "NTLDR is missing
    Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

    If it is a bare drive - does this indicate that it was a sloppy format and that there are still windows files on it?

    I am more curious as to why any linux distro that I have tried to boot from the optical drive fails and if this NTLDR issue is the cause.
     
    Schmi Daniel the Man, Jul 7, 2010
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  2. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    When you boot linux, what is the error?
     
    Thomas, Jul 7, 2010
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  3. Schmi Daniel the Man

    Schmi Daniel the Man Notebook Consultant

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    The disk does not load - either the Bios or the drive will not read any linux disks that i insert into the cd drive. The drive sounds like it is having a difficult time reading the disk. It spins up for a few seconds and repeats the message I stated above.
     
    Schmi Daniel the Man, Jul 7, 2010
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  4. KingRaptor

    KingRaptor Notebook Evangelist

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    Try using a lens cleaner disc to clean the drive's lens. It is a similar process to head cleaning on VHS players. What happens is this: over time, dust gets into the slot load drive. Eventually, the inside of the drive gets dirty enough that the lens cannot read the disc accurately and the error correction algorithms are not able to compensate any more. The drive then has trouble reading CDs and DVDs. Normally, with tray-load laptop drives, you can just eject the drive and use compressed air to blow off the lens. For desktop drives, you can by special CDs that clean the lens for you. For the slot load drives in the Studios, you may need a special cleaning CD or some other method to clean it.

    Hope that helps and good luck.
     
    KingRaptor, Jul 9, 2010
    #4