D:\ is not accessible. Incorrect Function. (Laptop)

[mrhowdeedoo]

I was going to burn a cd (through windows explorer, drag and drop) so I put in a blank and closed the drive. After a series of "noises" (sort of like a car changing gears) it starts to sound normal, and I click on CD Drive (D (through my computer) and it gives me this message.

"D:\ is not accessible. Incorrect Function.

I've also been having trouble with this drive about it's dvd functionality. The dvd will take a long time to load, will usually pause every five minutes, and more recently, start skipping ahead.

What should I do?

thanks,
mrhowdeedoo

EDIT:

Oh, right. Sorry.

I'm on a Gateway Solo 5300 (Laptop) running windows XP Pro. Pentium III at 700Mhz, w/ 256MB Ram. DVD-ROM/CD-RW.
Tell me if you need anything else.

[glc]

Post some specs, please.

[giseuda]

I get the same message. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, changed cables and changed the drive...no joy.

[glc]

Laptop optical drives are pretty delicate and light duty. Try opening the drive and blowing the dust off the lens carefully - and make sure it's running in DMA.

[mrhowdeedoo]

Aired out the drive...same problem. Aaand..what do you mean by DMA?

If this thing is damaged (I wouldn't be suprised, 4 years old and not too gentle handling), how hard/expensive would it be to replace this drive?

[glc]

Look in device manager, open the properties of the IDE controllers, there's a settings page to select DMA if available. If the drive is running "PIO" that's no good.

How hard? It depends on how it's mounted. How expensive? It depends if you can put a generic slim drive into the capsule or whether it's totally proprietary. Ebay is probably the best place to look for a dropin.

[mrhowdeedoo]

It's all, "DMA if available".

So I checked on ebay. Is a caddy drive the entire thing..or is it just the oustide? http://cgi.ebay.com/cdrom-dvd-drive-...QQcmdZViewItem

This looks good, but a little expensive...
http://cgi.ebay.com/CDRW-CD-RW-DVD-D...QQcmdZViewItem

I just checked again, and the speed is reported as 1.0Ghz...

[glc]

The caddy is just the thing I referred to as the capsule.

Did you read this on the second link?

Important Note: Please Read This Before Bid
I am selling the bare cd-rw/dvd combo drive only, cd caddy not included. You have to remove the Gateway cd/dvd drive from the cd caddy(cd caddy is just the casing attached to the cd/dvd drive), then attach this cd-rw/dvd combo drive to the cd caddy. It is very easy to remove the Gateway cd/dvd drive from the cd caddy, all you need is a small screwdriver.

That *looks* like a generic slim drive - you may be able to put just about anything in there if you have to.

I'm moving this to the laptop forum so people with more knowledge get a crack at this.

EDIT - This *might* work -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136065

There's also several slim DVD burners at Newegg. They all look the same shape - all we need to find out is if the Gateway caddy will accept a "standard" slim drive.

[Statica]

http://www.priorityelectronics.com/l...y-cdrw-dvd.htm is another list of compatible drives. You need not buy them from the site, but it provides you with a good list.

[mrhowdeedoo]

So...replacing it would be the thing to do? I think I'll go with that newegg one.