NEC 2500a Reads CD..but not DVD

[Spud1]

Right i'm fairly sure of my problem here..but I want to try and understand why it happened, and if I really have the correct diagnosis

Bascially I have a NEC 2500a DVD writer, and it will read CDs perfectly happily, but it refuses to read DVDs - either in windows, slackware, or using the bios 'boot from CD/DVD' option.

My natural assumtion is that this means the DVD laser has given up the ghost..but is there any other possible cause that you guys know of?

I figured that maybe there was a firmware corruption, so I spent a good few hours re-flashing it with different firmwares (from stock NEC ones to custom, region free/bit setting/) but with no change.

I tried different IDE cables and chans, master/slave..all to no avail.

In the end I went out to tesco and spent far too much ££ on a new drive ( really needed one tonight for various reasons, worth the extra £10 ) which works flawlessly, so I still think it is just a dead laser..but I have 28 days to return this new drive if I can get my old one working again So..any ideas?

Cheers

Spud/Pete

[Agent]

Bit of compressed air on the lens / clean it in one of the usual ways.
Other than that mate, probably dead

[mistrip]

Or try one of those lens cleaner discs.

[Spud1]

hmm not worth the money on a lens cleaner disc I think..but thanks for the suggestion I'll dig out some compressed air though, have some of that around here somewhere