dvrw/dvd drive problems on Dell Notebook

Trevord

Hi

I'm having problems with the Matsh1ta (panasonic) UJDA740 cdrw/dvd drive on my Dell Latitude D600 over the last few days.

Machine has lost the drive (not visible in explorer or computer management).

It shows up with the yellow exclamation mark in Device manager with a "code 37 error" saying that it can't initialize the device driver.

Tried reinstalling the driver but that did not work (there are no newer updates of the driver as far as I can see).

Only solution I found is to do a System Restore and go back 2 days. The drive then is recognised and functions correctly.

But again this morning on boot up the drive has disappeared.

I haven't installed any software of late and don't think there are drive letter conflicts.

Any assistance appreciated.

8T8

(I assume that's a typo and you meant the Latitude D600)

That is rather unusual if you use the system restore again does it come back to life once more or does it stay dead ?

You could try flashing an updated firmware for the drive on Dell's site

There are other more elaborate things you can try but for a DVD drive it is hardly worth it as they are so cheap to replace though it would rule out if it is a software issue.

Trevord

Yes thanks that was a typo - I have corrected the original post.

Trevord

Ran System Restore and the drive is functional again.

When I was looking in the system restore activity log (not sure what its correct name is) I saw that there was other activity taking place.

Software Distribution Service 2.0 has run after each system restore I've done.

Googled this software and it seems to be problematic.
http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18118

Now it occurs to me that my problems coincide with hooking the machine up to a home broadband connection. Mistakenly I had Windows automatic updates turned on.

Problem is that Software Distribution 2.0 is probably on my machine at the restore point (but maybe has not installed and then installs during the next boot up)

My speculation is that if i could find and delete Software Distribution 2.0, I could be out of the woods.

Can someone let me know where that software would reside when downloaded ?

Mountjoy Mugger

I spotted this post on the same site:

It gives a step by step how to get rid of it.

Default path is usually C:\windows\softwaredistribution.

Link: http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showpost.php?p=124954&postcount=38

8T8

SDS is part of Windows Update & Windows Defender so you don't want to be getting rid of it.

And SDS being the cause of the systems issues with the DVD drive is rather unlikely.

Have you got Nero installed, run Nero InfoTool and save the report it generates to a .txt file and attach it to your next post so we can take a look.

Trevord

No I don't have Nero, The only burning I do is with roxio CD Creator and Itunes.

I think I'll keep an eye on the machine for a few days to see what happens. May implement the suggest fix if necessary.

I need the drive functionality, so I'd be prepared to go without Software Distribution Service 2.0 if necessary. Everything is backed up to external drive anyway.

8T8

Keep an eye on anything coming down the pipe from Windows Update like a driver or update to a particular piece of software that is related to burning or the DVD drive.

In fact go to the Windows Update site and use the custom option to see what updates would be available to you as you can tell it to not send those updates to you via the auto update mechanism.

Trevord

I see that Software Distribution has a report log which may also be of use in this regard.

Some interesting bed time reading.