I need help with LG electronics LG DRN-8080B DVD-ROM

[acad1228]

I don't konw enough about the inner workings of a computer to try to change anything

[Cold Heat]

IIRC, that laptop was sold with a interchangeable drive slot.

I used to have one and I had three drives for it, a floppy, a CD burner/reader and a DVD Rom.

You can't read most CDs with the old DVD only reader. You need to buy a CD drive....Or get one out of a junk pile.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do

It's the smart move.
My 5 year old Sony CD-RW has been getting testy about reading/recognizing disks so I went on eBay and bought a brand new Sony CRX 230E drive that reads at 52x and burns at 32x...a hell of a lot faster than my old one.
It cost me $28 and that included the shipping.

[Senator Bedfellow]

DVD ROM drivers are built into Windows 2000 - you shouldn't need a new one. Have you tried uninstalling the drive and rebooting? That'll force it to reinstall the driver.

[acad1228]

Thanks, but that didn't work either.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Odd. I wonder if you got hooked by the Sony spyware? ;)

[Senator Bedfellow]

More seriously, that's about all you can do on your end - at this point, hardware seems like the most likely problem. Sorry.

[Rose in RoseBear]

Okay ...

You have a very old portable computer; it's the first one Dell made that had a DVD player on it.

If the CDs that you've tried in the drive are burned --- as opposed to commercial --- try a commercially-pressed CD in the drive. If a commercially-manufactured music CD or commercially-manufactured software CD (Office, Quicken, a game, anything) works in the drive, then the drive is just fine. A lot of older optical drives don't like burned CDs.

Next, have you reseated the drive? That drive comes out of that computer; do you know how to remove it? If you don't, look here, under "Using The Computer" for a (poor) diagram. Turn the computer off, unplug the computer, remove the battery, and then remove the DVD drive. Take a look, see if any of the contacts are bent or broken or burnt; if they look all right, push the drive back in the computer, latch it down, put the battery back in, plug in the ACAdapter, and turn it back on.

Now, if the drive still doesn't read commercial CDs, it could be the drive needs to have its firmware upgraded. If you have a Toshiba 8x DVD drive, there is a flash available on Dell's website, under Firmware. If you don't have a Toshiba drive, don't use this flash. To find out if you have a Toshiba drive:

• Right-click on the My Computer icon;
• Left-click on Properties (at the bottom of the pop-up menu);
• Left-click on the Hardware tab;
• Left-click on the Device Manager button (it's in the middle of the window).

Find your DVD drive. Device Manager gives the model.

Also, you probably need to update your BIOS. That's available at the same place, under FlashBIOS Updates.

If it still doesn't work, you may indeed have a bad laser. You may also have a software glitch. If you have access to another Inspiron 7500, try swapping drives; if you don't have another one, you can try to hook up an external drive, but most of those external drives are USB2.0, and the connector on the Inspiron 7500 has a four-pin UNpowered USB 1.0 connector. If you try an external drive, make sure the drive has its own power source, or try the external drive with a powered USB 2.0 hub.

[Rose in RoseBear]

A desktop drive won't fit in your Inspiron, and even if you get the drive into the carrier, the BIOS won't handle the speeds of modern drives.

Your best bet is eBay, or a second-hand computer store in your area. Let me emphasize again, the Inspiron 7500 is a very old portable computer; it was introduced in 1999. It will not work with modern devices in a predictable fashion.