lower cd slot not working

[yatrol]

The lower cd slot has not been working for a while (CD-Writer) The top (DVD - rom) works fine. the problem is that when I put the disk in it starts thinking then stops, starts then stops and nothing comes up.

 

[The_Other_One]

Probably just a bad drive. They do tend to fail overtime... How old is it? Could anything of gotten knocked loose inside?

 

[yatrol]

it is 3-4 maybe 5 years old.

 

[The_Other_One]

If nothing's been done, it's probably just failed over time. You can get DVD-Burners for under $40, CD-RWs for about $20 or so... Seeing as you're replacing it, it should be quite easy to swap them out.

A little test you could try, if you want to be sure it's hardware, find some bootable disk. Perhaps a Windows XP disk... Try to boot to that disk using the CD-RW. Perhaps even disconnect the other drive to be sure it's using the correct drive(I've seen a few computers that only use one of the CD-ROMs as a bootable device...)