I have a sony vaio, and i can't get the combo drive to write cds. this seems to be an intermittent problem. sometimes the drive doesn't show up in my computer and when i try to load the driver, i get a message saying that the driver is already loaded. rebooting a few times helps occasionally. i brought it back to sony and they couldn't reproduce the problem. the laptop is about 2 months old.

The Operating system maybe corrupted but your files are still good. Try to run a system restore and before the date you notice the system fails to start.

my sony vaio vgn-cr353 shows in bios hard drive not found

Have you tried burning a CD in the new drive? Because the drive is a DVD it will always be recognised as a DVD, but should work perfectly well with CDs both playing and recording.

Most Sony Vaio systems will have a VAIO recovery wizard. Create a Recovery Media Kit using this wizard and you’ll be able to create a set of CDs that will enable you to do a system recovery on your Sony VAIO machine.
If your PC does not have this feature, you can always call Sony at 1-800-488-SONY to have them send you the disks.

Once you have either created or ordered and received the CDs necessary to restore your Sony VAIO computer, you’ll need to place the first CD in the drive and reboot the machine. The recovery process will immediately begin when the system boots. If it does not begin, you may have to enter the BIOS of the computer to change the boot sequence to the CD ROM instead of the hard drive. To enter the BIOS, tap the F2 key numerous times when booting.

REMEMBER... when you use the recoery system, it will restore your computer to it's ORIGINAL configuration from the factory. All data and programs you have installed will be GONE!

dear friend

sorry to say that your dvd drive needs to be replaced,

it happens most of times

dvd drives of laptops arent of so much great quality

thanks

since she formatted the hard drive there is no drivers for your cd rom to work

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I'm assuming the system says that there is no disc and you've tried factory DVDs (self made ones can have intermittent results on different burners).

If that is the case, this is probably a problem with the drive's DVD laser. There are two different lasers in most (probably all) combo drives. One for CDs and one for DVDs. You need a new drive.

This generally indicates a hard drive crash/failure, in which the hard drive will need to be replaced. Rare, but occasionally you will get this error from an operating system glitch. Before you run out and buy a new hard drive, try reloading the operating system. If you have any problems during or after the install, then the hard drive is shot.

The Vaio / Sony combo DVD drives are renowned to be some of the worst on the market. Sony puts the cheapest cr*p in their laptop and it should be no surprise that after a couple of reads (10+) and writes (10+), your combo drive will be as good as junk... dead weight in your laptop. You'll also hear strange repetitive noises coming from it. I have 3 solutions:
1) Go to the Vaio support site, type your model number to get its page and search DVD upgrade firmware. This should 2 files. One is a .bin and the other is an executable to flash the drive with that .bin file. If the problem still persists then bad news.
2) Buy a USB2 external combo drive. This should be real cheap nowadays.
3) Check impactcomputers for a replacement internal drive. Prices have come down but still quite pricey.

Also if you can let those f*cks at Vaio know what you had to go through, that'd be great.

It's common problem with combo drives in notebooks, they don't seem to last long. Try this:- Go to my computer>properties>hardware>device manager and look down the list for your cd/dvd drives and click the '+' sign then highlight your dvd drive and right click to delete. Restart the pc and windows will find the drive again automatically and install the drivers. If the problem persists the laser is faulty in the drive and the drive will need to be replaced.