Clean the drive or disk —
See the Dell™TechnologyGuide for more information on cleaning your computer.
Check the cable connections
Run the Hardware Troubleshooter —
See Hardware Troubleshooteronpage83.
Run the Dell Diagnostics —
See Dell Diagnostics.

Optical drive problems

Adjust the Windows volume control —
lClick the speaker icon in the lower-right corner of your screen.
lEnsure that the volume is turned up by clicking the sidebar and dragging it up.
lEnsure that the sound is not muted by clicking any boxes that are checked.
Check the speakers and subwoofer —
See Sound and Speaker Problems.

Problems writing to an optical drive

Close other programs —
Theopticaldrivemustreceiveasteadystreamofdataduringthewritingprocess.Ifthestreamisinterrupted,anerroroccurs.Tryclosingallprogramsbefore
you write to the optical.
Turn off standby mode in Windows before writing to a disc —
Search for the keyword standby in Windows Help and Support for information on power management modes.

Hard drive problems

Run Check Disk —
Windows XP:
1. Click Start and click My Computer.
2. Right-click Local Disk C:.
3. Click Properties® Tools® Check Now.
4. Click Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors and click Start.
Windows Vista:
1. Click Start and click Computer.
2. Right-click Local Disk C:.
3. Click Properties® Tools® Check Now.
The User Account Control window may appear. If you are an administrator on the computer, click Continue; otherwise, contact your administrator to
continue the desired action.
4. Follow the instructions on the screen.
NOTE: High-speed optical drive vibration is normal and may cause noise, which does not indicate a defect in the drive or the media.
NOTE: Because of different regions worldwide and different disc formats, not all DVD titles work in all DVD drives.