DVD rewriter drive recognition, or not.

pjon said:

Well, I'm certainly not going to waste another three hours and have everything wiped from the laptop. Where do I obtain a full install? The laptop was supplied, allegedly, with a Widows 10 c.d.. That, as supplied with it, does not work.
Reminds me of the old TINY computers. Tough Its Now Yours. That appears to be the mantra of PCS now. I've purchased four of their p.c.s over the years, three desktops and this laptop. No more, it's just overpriced tat now.

"You don’t need the recovery disc, you can download direct from Microsoft and install to usb." That will be £119 please![rollinglaugh]

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Your ignorance is hampering your ability to constructively resolve the issue. It’s not a hardware issue, it’s a windows issue, it has nothing to do with the laptop. Tbh, with your attitude I have no wish to further help out.

Oussebon said:

wut? You download Windows 10 for free with no need to pay a penny or even log in, direct from MS https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

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Yup - where do you get the idea it costs you to reinstall?

Oussebon said:

It's much faster to install off USB than CD too.

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Literally an order of magnitude faster.

Oussebon said:

Moreover, your CD when you got the PC will be an old version of Windows 10 anyway - so after installing it you'd then get fed an even larger raft of updates.

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If it's three years old, then you can look forward to several GB of updates. Followed by a dozen* 6-monthly full updates of Windows. With all of the updates in between.

Oussebon said:

You've clearly made your mind up that it's all PCS's fault. But in fairness you're making excuses to not troubleshoot and apparently avoid accepting you didn't follow the community's recommendations.

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SpyderTracks said:

Your ignorance is hampering your ability to constructively resolve the issue. It’s not a hardware issue, it’s a windows issue, it has nothing to do with the laptop. Tbh, with your attitude I have no wish to further help out.

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You also seem to believe that the volunteers here, none of whom work for PCS are somehow responsible and that it's acceptable to return them giving you advice in their own time by being rude.

Here you go. Problem solved in the laziest way possible: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEVA-External-Notebook-Desktop-Support/dp/B0773GVDBF/

*Ok...5:

▶ Version 1809 (OS build 17763)
▶ Version 1803 (OS build 17134)
▶ Version 1709 (OS build 16299)
▶ Version 1703 (OS build 15063)
▶ Version 1607 (OS build 14393)
▶ Version 1511 (OS build 10586)
▶ Version 1507 (RTM) (OS build 10240)

But still...each one is around 4GB to download. Each one except the latest has countless GB of updates before you can update to the next version.

pjon said:

Well, I'm certainly not going to waste another three hours and have everything wiped from the laptop. Where do I obtain a full install? The laptop was supplied, allegedly, with a Widows 10 c.d.. That, as supplied with it, does not work.
Reminds me of the old TINY computers. Tough Its Now Yours. That appears to be the mantra of PCS now. I've purchased four of their p.c.s over the years, three desktops and this laptop. No more, it's just overpriced tat now.

"You don’t need the recovery disc, you can download direct from Microsoft and install to usb." That will be £119 please![rollinglaugh]

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A true statement.

If you visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 you can download a tool which will get you the latest version of Windows 10 (make sure you select the same version that you already have, ie. Home or Pro). The tool can write either to a bootable DVD or a bootable USB stick (it needs to be at least 8GB). Because you have a valid Windows 10 license this will activate normally post install.

I don't know how you have done a clean reinstall without installation media, the Windows 'Reset' feature isn't a clean reinstall. It is however very important that you do a completely clean reinstall of Windows and all drivers (allow Windows Update to find all these) so that you are certain that you have the most stable software platform possible. Only if it fails in that state can you be fairly sure it's a hardware problem.

You're entitled to think your PCS laptop is overpriced tat if you like, but if you've not yet done a clean reinstall of Windows you don't yet know whether you have a hardware issue (that PCS will help you with) or a software issue (which you can fix yourself).

I read what you said about not being sure whether it's been like this since day one, but you've had it for three years so you must know whether it has worked in the past...?

ubuysa said:

It's my understanding that PCS don't put a recovery partition on their laptops?

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There is on mine, I've checked "disk management". "Recovery 500MB NTFS Healthy OEM". There are five partitions in total.
Why is that there? I would have thought, which I did, was to return to "factory" condition.
I am not particularly computer literate - just use them. Therefore I am not that confident in downloading this, installing that, changing settings, diagnosing problems etc.
I do appreciate the help but there is something amiss with the machine. Whether that is software or hardware, I can fairly confidently say it is nothing of my doing.
Yes, I can go and purchase an external optical drive but that isn't the point. The internal drive in this machine should work and it randomly doesn't.
I am also a bit disappointed in the lack of help I received when phoning PCS, only to be told the drive is probably failing. Plus they will not help if it is a software (e.g. operating sytem) fault.

Oussebon said:

wut? You download Windows 10 for free with no need to pay a penny or even log in, direct from MS https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

It's much faster to install off USB than CD too.

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Thanks for that link. I'm downloading to a u.s.b. stick right now.
All I could find on Microsoft's website was the option to download Win. 10 for £119 and pennies.
Checking the instructions it looks to be exactly the same procedure as using the recovey partition. No doubt with the same resulting intermittent fault?

You need to delete all the old Windows partitions off the drive before you install, or else it isn't a clean install. Partitions like a recovery partition still on the drive mean there are parts of the old OS still on there.

See: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/clean-install-Windows-10/

So after you delete the partitions, you'll end up with the whole drive as unallocated space. You only install Windows after that. And needless to say, you need to back up data on the drive first(!).

You could indeed end up with the same fault if it is a hardware issue, but a clean install of Windows is important to help rule out driver issues first.

pjon said:

There is on mine, I've checked "disk management". "Recovery 500MB NTFS Healthy OEM". There are five partitions in total.
Why is that there? I would have thought, which I did, was to return to "factory" condition.
I am not particularly computer literate - just use them. Therefore I am not that confident in downloading this, installing that, changing settings, diagnosing problems etc.
I do appreciate the help but there is something amiss with the machine. Whether that is software or hardware, I can fairly confidently say it is nothing of my doing.
Yes, I can go and purchase an external optical drive but that isn't the point. The internal drive in this machine should work and it randomly doesn't.
I am also a bit disappointed in the lack of help I received when phoning PCS, only to be told the drive is probably failing. Plus they will not help if it is a software (e.g. operating sytem) fault.

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That's not a factory recovery partition. It's one of the UEFI/GPT partitions and it's used when you do a Windows 'Reset' - that's not the same as a clean install, nor is it a factory restore.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions

Just a final update.
I carried out a clean re-install from the u.s.b. stick. I do,fortunately backup my p.c. so was able to restore most things from that.
It did need quite lot of stuff, other than that, installing.
I did all this on the 17th and all seemed to be good. However,yesterday evening, I started to install my printer's software from the Epson supplied c.d.. The printer set up completed and I selected "Finish". Then with the c.d. still in the drive selected installation of their "Easy Photo Print", the drive spun up and nothing happened. I removed the c.d., then inserted it back into the drive. Still nothing. Opened "This P.C.", lo and behold no F drive showing. Restarted the p.c., still no F drive showing and not working. Also the question mark over it in explorer andMy p.c.
Did nothing further and carried on setting other things up then quite randomely the F drive re-appears and works normally.
Looks like I'll have to live with this and use an external optical drive which is more to carry around unecessarily because it is required.
Thanks to those who have tried to help but I think it's time to put this to bed now. A new laptop is on the cards, not from PCS though!

So your three+ year old laptop develops a fault and people here bend over backwards - despite your repeated rudeness - to help and you still feel the need to have a final dig?

I recommend a Dell or HP. See how you get on with their forums and help.

I'm done.

Odd that it was working perfectly for a day or two after the clean install. If it was a hardware issue you'd really expect that to not change the behaviour.

On a side note, you can usually download and install requisite software from the printer manufacturer's website, and this will be more up to date than what's on the DVD/CD that shipped with the product.

pjon said:

Just a final update.
I carried out a clean re-install from the u.s.b. stick. I do,fortunately backup my p.c. so was able to restore most things from that.
It did need quite lot of stuff, other than that, installing.
I did all this on the 17th and all seemed to be good. However,yesterday evening, I started to install my printer's software from the Epson supplied c.d.. The printer set up completed and I selected "Finish". Then with the c.d. still in the drive selected installation of their "Easy Photo Print", the drive spun up and nothing happened. I removed the c.d., then inserted it back into the drive. Still nothing. Opened "This P.C.", lo and behold no F drive showing. Restarted the p.c., still no F drive showing and not working. Also the question mark over it in explorer andMy p.c.
Did nothing further and carried on setting other things up then quite randomely the F drive re-appears and works normally.
Looks like I'll have to live with this and use an external optical drive which is more to carry around unecessarily because it is required.
Thanks to those who have tried to help but I think it's time to put this to bed now. A new laptop is on the cards, not from PCS though!

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I realise this is horses and stable doors, but it was a mistake to reinstall Windows and then immediately reinstall all your stuff from your backup (I assume you mean third-party software there?). It would be wiser to clean install Windows and all the latest drivers and nothing else, this gives you the most stable software platform so if it fails in that state it's likely hardware. Then repeatedly test the DVD drive to see whether it's recognised, if not it's probably hardware.

By reinstalling all your old stuff it's possible you have reinstalled whatever was causing the problem.....