I have a Gateway M210s with a HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4243N optical drive. This drive was working unitl today. I have used this drive with Suse 10.0, Suse 10.1, Suse 10.2, Windows XP. This drive worked very well. The problem started after Ripping CDs. It will read DVDs, but it will not read CD Audio or CD-R. I tried using a WinXP boot CD, but it will not boot; the computer starts GRUB. The Bios sees the drive, but it will not read CDd. I doubt this is a driver issue.

Will I have to buy another optical drive from Gateway or can I just go to Best Buy?

Is there a way to fix the hardware or do I just replace it?

Could I possibly have reset or corrupted the firmware somehow? If so how do I reinstall the firmware from Linux?

Hope someone can help.

Thanks

What ripping program were you using? I had a similar problem with K3b. I burnt a couple CD's and when I rebooted, my CD-RW has been a brick. Bios hasn't detected it ever since.

Like you I was using K3B. Did you have to buy another drive?

I have to try it in another system, but most likely. If it's a brick, and bios can't detect it, then there is nothing the OS can do.

My OS can detect the drive, but the CD functionality does not work. The BIOS also detects my drive. It would help to have a firmware update to ensure that the firmware was not corrupted. I installed WindowsXP so that I can work on the drive, but I have not found any firmware. God I hate windows, but I am stuck with it for now!

I have a drive like that too. It gets detected, but nothing functions. Chalk it up to hardware failure. What brand/model burner is it?