CD/DVD player

[Mr-H]

Is my CD player on the blink or is it a Windows Media Player fault?
Suddenly, it will play original CDs, but not those that I have made up. Up until a couple of days ago, everything was good - now it's not! Is a replacement player neded? Can I do it myself? Is it expensive?

[TTG]

Mine stopped playing certain types before failing altogether. Have you had the drive long? Try a different batch of blank cds. They are easy to replace and cost £30-40 for a new drive that can burn/play both cds and dvds.

[ChuckFickens]

You might want to mention if it's a desktop or a laptop.

[Mr-H]

Sorry - it's an Advent 6552 laptop, I've had it for about 20 months. I was looking at external CD players - is this a better option?

[ChuckFickens]

It's a Samsung TS-L633 drive in those...

this should be compatible.

http://www.pcworld.co...ive-04888796-pdt.html

I'm not familiar with that model to know exactly how the drive is removed, but it's not normally too hard on most laptops, normally you'd have to remove a couple of rails from the side of the old drive to fit onto the new drive but they are pretty standard under the extra bits they screw to the side.

An external is an option if you don't want to try changing the drive and having to plug a extra lead in whenever you want to use it. (though if you get a small laptop drive based external CD drive there is a good chance you might be able to remove the drive from the external case and fit it to the laptop at a later date)