Fujitsu Siemens amilo d 1.1 celeron cdrom fault

[Kurgen]

I have a Fujitsu Siemens amilo d 1.1 celeron that is causing me no-end of grief.

Firstly..  My cd drive is playing up.  It recognises the drive and can play audio cds but will not read data cds or dvds(it is a cdrw/dvd).  I have tried cleaning the drive lens, reinstalling the drivers and various cds and dvds.  Nothing.  I am one step away from putting it in the bin as I have a second problem.  

My tv-out port has just stopped working.  It was working fine and then nothing.  When I put in the s-video cable it doesn't recognise that it is there and will not enable the tv option.  The cable works fine in my pc tv-out and had worked in the laptop for months.  I have reinstalled the graphics drivers and updated them but to no effect.

With no cd rom I can't reinstall win xp to see if that cures the problem so if someone has any advice please, please help me before I go insane and by the way I have just found this forum and it is full of good stuff, I am well impressed.

[dcsun]

Welcome to Poasters

Can you boot from the cd-rom drive?  If so, try booting from either the Windows cd or restore cd and start again with the machine the way it shipped (and of course backup any important data).  If you can't boot from the cd-rom (after making sure the bios settings are correct), you may very well have a hardware problem and should contact the company or the retailer to arrange for repairs.

[Kurgen]

I cant boot from the cd rom.  My bios settings are ok also.  I don't understand how it can read audio but not data.

The laptop is past its guarantee so if I cant get it sorted myself I will just replace the drive myself.  

Do you know any suppliers of replacement parts in the UK that are well priced.

[query]

It is possible that the CD read laser is out of alignment - but in any case, it sounds like a replacement is needed.

You can check with a Fujisu dealer for an exact replacement, or keep the shell you have and just replace the drive - a slimline CD-RW/DVD drive in the US runs about $250.  CD slimlines are now under $50, with about $100-150 fetching just a DVD-ROM.