Sony BWU-500S Desktop Blu-Ray drive Won’t Read

[callahan75]

About this drive https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/sony ... ew?page=35
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/sony-bwu ... tures.html , I have the BWU-500S, serial # 1007338L411. Though it’s 10 year old it’s gotten very little use, so how likely that any optical or electromechanical parts would be defective with such infrequent use? I have it installed in an ancient Dell Dimension 8300, Windows XP Pro SP2. The pc runs fine and I use it as part of my redundant file backup system. Of course, I keep this old desktop off the internet and its hardware’s too old to play BD movies, but I never had a problem playing DVD movies, though I seldom even do that. But I now need the BWU-500S for ripping CD tracks.

I think the drive may have stopped working when I tried and failed to uninstall an old version of Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 some weeks ago via Control Panel. Ever since when Win XP loads there’s a Nuance message, Dragon tries to install and then prompts me to install the CD. I finally persuaded Nuance Support to create an .exe file which did successfully installed Dragon. But after Shutdown and reloading Win XP the BWU-500S still won’t read any DVDs or CDs.

I checked connections of the BWU-500S’s power and data cables and Windows Device Manager says the drive is enabled and is operating normally. But every time I inserted a disc I hear something but not the motor spinning up to read the disc. And in Windows Explorer when I click on the drive it says “please insert a disc”, with the disc already loaded. Is a corrupt driver file most likely the problem?

As you probably know Sony sold its Optiarc division https://www.optiarcinc.com/list-drives.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optiarc . But I don’t see any indication that Vinpower Digital supports the BWU-500S or BD5300S.
https://www.vinpowerdigital.com/downloads?utf8=✓&category=8911&keyword=Sony+bwu-500s

A purple colored Sony Software Disc Rev. 9.30W DVD came with the BWU-500S. Assuming the device driver might be on it, I inserted that DVD just before Windows loaded, hoping the drive would read a driver or some .exe file. But it did nothing.

Assuming the BWU-500S drive didn’t have a physically destructive hardware failure, I then thought of going into Control Panel > Add Hardware and trying to get Win XP to recognize the BWU-500S as new hardware. But I haven’t done this yet. Should I try this? But if it asks me to load the driver what should I do if don’t have the driver to load from a USB flash drive? Or is the driver that’s already loaded probably not corrupted and should I just proceed with the rest of the Control Panel New Hardware install steps?

Or should I try something else?

[Ian]

Even with an OS as old as XP, you shouldn't need to install any drivers for it to read a disc. If you want to eliminate problems with the OS or any of the software installed, I'd boot something like WinPE or even Linux off a USB flash drive and see if you can read a disc. You could also try cleaning the drive's lens using one of those cleaner discs.

Even though the drive wasn't used much, I'd be prepared to accept the fact that it is most likely destined for the recycle bin. 10 years is a good run for any PC component.

[callahan75]

Even with an OS as old as XP, you shouldn't need to install any drivers for it to read a disc. You could also try cleaning the drive's lens using one of those cleaner discs.

Even though the drive wasn't used much, I'd be prepared to accept the fact that it is most likely destined for the recycle bin. 10 years is a good run for any PC component.

XP runs pretty solid on this old but quiet and RAID read speedy pc. I tried uninstalling the BD drive via Device Manager, restarting XP and then re-installing the drive, but it still doesn't detect a DVD movie nor a DVD-RW data disc.

If you have ever known users who had luck fixing a problem like this by using a particular cleaner disc please suggest one or more makes or models. Otherwise, it's time to buy another drive.