Hey, I have a 4 year old dvd rom. I bought a game and tried to install it: no go. It just read and read and did not respond, could not read contents in windows explorer and autorun did not work. Further, I threw in an audio cd and it clicks and pops. The clicks and pops are correlated with the light on the rom, so when it clicks in sync with the rapidly flashing green light. I ran eusing to fix the registry, no change. I am ready to buy a new one, but am wondering if there might be another reason.
The laser is more than likely worn out on such an old drive, or another element of the hardware is failing. So yeah, time for a new drive - they aren't expensive anymore, not for a pretty standard burner.
