Hi Ben, I just got your email. Gateway sent me a new (refurbished??) CDRW/DVDRW combo drive- same make and model number. It did the same exact thing. CD part worked, DVD part didn't work. I thought that was strange. My husband said to call them back and tell them it didn't work. I wasn't going to because I was out of warranty and they were being nice by sending a new one, but I figured I'd give it a shot. The guy sent me another one! In the meantime, my husband took the computer to his job and had the tech look at it. They tried the combo drive in another computer and same thing- it didn't work. They tried a different one in my computer and it worked fine. I told my husband I think that somehow my computer corrupted the combo drive. I don't know how or why, but it was too much of a coincidence to have the same problem. I told them to reformat my computer with the borrowed drive and we would wait for the new combo drive from Gateway. They reformatted it. We got the new combo drive and they put it in - same thing! DVD part does not work. Even after a reformat. Now I wish they would have tried the combo drive in a different computer BEFORE putting it in mine, just to see if it did work before it was put into the Gateway. They sent me the same excact model # and make as my original, both times. SO, I didn't call Gateway again. I was lucky they did what they did for me. We went out and got a different model and make CDRW/DVDRW combo drive (HP) and it works fine. Go figure. The LiteON used to work before the Roxio update, and after the update it will not even accept that make and model anymore, even after a reformat. The reason why I wanted to do a full system restore was because I think Windows also got corrupted. I couldn't do a System Restore back to a previous safe point. I would try, and it would say, "Cannot restore back to that date- please pick another date and start System Restore again". Every date I tried came up with that message. Also my Power DVD did not work after the Roxio problem. I did reinstall it, but I didn't know what other problems I might run into in the future, since System Restore also was not working.
After reformatting, I tried to back something up on one of my CDs and both of my drives disappeared. (CD Rom and CDRW/DVDRW drives) I tried rebooting the computer and it wouldn't boot. My husband somehow got it to boot (I walked away disgusted at this point) and the drives came back. I don't know if all Gateway computers are like this, or if I just got LUCKY, but I'll never buy another Gateway again. I have bookmarked that website. Thanks for the information. Until we decide to get another computer, I guess I'll have to put up with this one. LOL. Lisa -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Moore Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 9:52 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: PCWorks: DVD player doesn't work Hi Lisa, Sorry, I've been out of town or I would have answered sooner. Have you followed the Gateway instructions for a system recovery? I just went to the Gateway site and they have very particular instructions for starting the recovery that is not like booting normally from a DVD. That may be why it didn't work as a bootable DVD. Take a look at http://support.gateway.com/s/SOFTWARE/Medialess/MLXPH2/MLXPH2asi.shtml . They have set up their own method to do this and I suspect they've stuck a hidden partition on there too. They have several methods of doing a system restore that I think you should try before taking the thing to a tech person. Read the instructions thoroughly before you start. Remember when you restore you could lose some data so make sure you have stuff backed up. I just hate companies that put proprietary software on their systems. It makes it very difficult to trouble shoot using general knowledge. So try the system restore according to Gateway's instructions. Hopefully that will correct whatever the Roxio software did to your dvd drivers. If it doesn't fix it, you are going to have to take it to a Tech person to clean every bit of the roxio stuff off computer and from the registry and install it again. My problem with this was not realizing that the DVD you have is peculiar to Gateway and not a true bootable disk. Let us know what happens. I still don't know why the Gateway tech didn't walk you through this in the first place. Ben ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
