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I have an odd thing happening lately in that my internal Sony DVD-RW player, MN: AW-Q170A (or Optiarc AD-5170A to be exact) won't recognize any DVD's, blank, burned or distributed but does recognize CD's.

I've confirmed this in both an old XP Pro w/SP2 & all updates and a fresh Vista Ultimate x64 install. I even tried a bootup with the Vista Ultimate bootable install disk with the BIOS set to boot from CD, which I just used to install Vista last week and that failed too. With all that I'm leaning toward that its not a OS or software problem.

I installed this drive about three months ago and have used it a lot and this is the first problem I've had.

I've check the specs with Nero's Info Tool and picks up everything correctly and says I have Firmware version 1.70.

I've seen that since this is a funny drive in the manufacture dept, that there really isn't a good place for a Firmware update except for here: http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/en/Optiarc-AD-5170A/ but one, it doesn't seem like a very straight froward update and two, whether it will solve the problem is debatable.

So does anyone have any ideas ????

Here is firmware version 1.73.

ftp://ftp.vaio.sony.co.jp/pub/vaio/down ... 500-JP.exe

Is your drive still under warranty? If not, you may want to try cleaning your drive. Blow some compressed air in there or if you're really ambitious, try cleaning off the lense.

Yeah I would suspect it still under warranty and I know this might sounds lazy but, I really don't feel like going through calling support, dealing with them diagnosising it till the finally give me a RMA, taking it out, boxing it, sending it, waiting for a return and all that crap. For what these things cost it would be a lot less hassle to just get a new one.

Also thanks for the update link, I downloaded it and ran the .exe, it gave me some foreign writing with an OK button which I clicked but when I checked with Nero it still had the same Firmware, I guess I didn't do it right ?

Sorry to say but I think the DVD laser died. I had something similar happen to one of my Lite On drives. The difference being, instead of DVDs being the problem, it doesn't recognize CDs at all.

Good Luck!