HP computer CD burner

[Milestones]

I have a new  computer, which seems good overall; but I'm not happy with the burner.  It is positioned sideways, which seems to be common  anymore (my last computer had this too).  But I think it's stupid, and it's a pain to get the CD in.  Then the CD either takes forever to appear in the media player of file directory, or never appears.  I'm waiting right now for 10 minutes.  Plus the whole thing seems so chintzy that a bit too pressure of a figure will wreck it.

Can anyone relate to this?

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I wonder if it's trying to mount that disc, so it's taking a long time trying to mount an un-mountable disc?

The first time you inserted a disc into that drive, did a pop up appear asking you how you wanted to handle this? What did you say? I wonder if it's defaulting to something weird.

BTW, new machines running Windows 10 do something similar with thumb drives. Instead of mounting them like a floppy disc, they mount them like a hard drive. It makes it harder to do some things.

FWIW, I usually set the action for disc insertion to "Do nothing" because I hate autoplay.

[mjzee]

Try plugging in an external USB disc player and see if you get the same or different results.

[JSngry]

What does a sideways optical drive look like on the tower/case/whatever? Serious question.

[Milestones]

On your old vinyl turntables and CD players you would put in the disc flat.  With many computers, the loading slot is a 90 degree turn--thus loaded sideways.

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

What does a sideways optical drive look like on the tower/case/whatever? Serious question.

https://superuser.com/questions/923546/how-can-an-optical-drive-function-when-mounted-vertically

3 hours ago, Milestones said:

I have a new  computer, which seems good overall; but I'm not happy with the burner.  It is positioned sideways, which seems to be common  anymore (my last computer had this too).  But I think it's stupid, and it's a pain to get the CD in.  Then the CD either takes forever to appear in the media player of file directory, or never appears.  I'm waiting right now for 10 minutes.  Plus the whole thing seems so chintzy that a bit too pressure of a figure will wreck it.

Can anyone relate to this?

 

The more I think about this, I seem to remember having a PC with one of those slim optical disc drives and the sucker just never worked right. I swapped it for another I had layining around the office and *bam* everything was normal. Maybe you got a defective drive too? As mjzee suggested, try a different drive and see if it works better. If it does, get a new drive.

And I have to add that being in the electronics industry, I've heard a lot of talk that many (most? all?) of the manufacturers of stuff like disc drives rely on you, the consumer, to test out if they built it right or not. You see, they've determined that it's less expensive to send you a new drive than test the ones they're shipping out the door. Double bonus if someone doesn't even attempt to use it before the warranty period, which these days is often 90 days.

[Milestones]

Something is wrong, because the F drive (for CD and DVD) does not show up in the file directory. I have C (Windows), D (data, such as music, Word Files, photos), E (recovery), and G (external hard drive).

 

[mjzee]

18 minutes ago, Milestones said:

Something is wrong, because the F drive (for CD and DVD) does not show up in the file directory. I have C (Windows), D (data, such as music, Word Files, photos), E (recovery), and G (external hard drive).

 

Often the F drive will only show if you have a disc in it.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, mjzee said:

Often the F drive will only show if you have a disc in it.

That must be an Apple thing? I've never experienced that phenomena with Windows. And based on that, I would proffer the possibility that the drive was not installed correctly, either not securely, or at all. Or something. The drive itself could very well be faulty. Windows should show that drive as being there.

Don't know where you bought this machine and/or who you get to do your service, but I would try taking that optical drive out altogether, reboot, power off, put it back in, and then reboot. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, have somebody who is (and who is not looking to cop a fee) do it for you. Make sure everything is tight, all contacts, shoulldn't be any wiggel-waggle.

When you reboot, the OS should detect the device and then do whatever configuration is necessary. Plug & Play, it's pretty much a reality these days.

 

[Milestones]

Not an Apple.

Anyway, I do find the CD/DVD drive when I go into This PC (formerly My Computer) and look under "devices and "drivers."

 

 

I 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Milestones

[JSngry]

Ok, then, right click on the drive, selexct properties, and then hit the "Hardware" tap and see if it says "This Device Is Working Properly" That base-level tropubleshoioting. Past that, there are a lot of Windows troubleshooting tool that you you do, but I'm afraid I 'd not be the pone to responsibly guide you through any of them.

There's still the old Device Manager inside Control Panel, where you can right click on each drive and take a look there. But I generally don't go there unless accompanied by a geek.