Hello everyone,
I have a HP ZE2000 laptop for 2 years now and never had an issue burning nor reading DVD's/CD's until recently, my original driver was a Pioneer K15 dvdrw driver.About a month ago my driver stopped recognizing DVD's but would play only CD media, I assumed that the driver was bad so I purchased a replacement from E-bay.When it arrived they sent me a Pioneer K-16 instead of a K-15 which I thought was the current replacement,when I put a dvd in the driver it wouldn't recognize the media giving me an error message of incompatible media with the dvdrw+,so I bought dvd rw- and got the same message.After a couple of days of frustrations I managed to get the vendor to replace my unit and they sent me a HL-DT-ST GSA-4084N driver which I could get the green light to light up and open and the laptop recognizes the driver but nothing happens when I insert a DVD movie or Cd.I appologize for the lenghthy description I'm new to all this technical issues etc..Does anyone have any advice, I tried to burn a new firmware but the device didn't even turn on or make noise.Thanks in advance.
Get your money back.. you have been sold a lemon there. Those are awful cheap and nasty oem installed drives. We have a few threads about how bad they are already.. (I'm not going to post a link.. I have a supplier who can sell me those drives in batches of 50 for £79.99 including delivery (less than £2 each)
They have been removed from overstock HP desktop vista home basic machines that this business rebrands and fits with xp pro and sells on)
Don't buy dvd drives from ebay, go to a reputable site which sells A1 grade components. Most of the "bargain" pc components on ebay are actually bulk bought seconds and quality control failures. Go to newegg or equivalent and pay list price. You will save in the long run.
My 3yr old ZE2000 has the 4084N and (touch wood) it's still going strong, gets used quite heavily; never updated the firmware on it and have hammered the hell out of it ripping many many movies as well as burning countless dvd's. However i don't think laptop drives are made very well at all so while i'm glad i've had a good run with mine i won't be surprised if and when it goes splat..
Another option could be to use a standard dvd burner in a USB2.0 enclosure, provided you use your laptop as a desktop, at least that way the standard burner will outlast the other drives and the laptop itself.
