Faulty DVD Drive? Some questions pls.

Hi all
My dad bought an HP Compaq nx9420 Pavillion notebook a while back. When he got it, he had problems with the DVD drive straight away. On the first startup, when you're meant to create backup discs of the OS, the notebook stopped halfway through the backup with what seemed to be a DVD drive failure. I don't know if there was an error message displayed at the time, it just stopped copying.
The drive has since given continuous problems. It fails to recognise discs often, and when it does recognise them ,it makes the most awful noise when reading them (somewhere between a grinding noise and slipping belt sound). Also, when it does play a DVD, the sound playing through the speakers is horrendous (like it's not decoding it properly and it's scrambled).
First question: based on the info above (which isn't very much, I apologise), does it sound to you guys like the drive is toast? I'm no IT expert, but my first impression was that the drive was faulty to start with.
The notebook was taken back to the store where it was purchased, and sent to HP, but neither made any attempt to fix the problem. So my dad's stuck with it.
Recently I tried to find out about replacement drives so that I could fix it for the old man. The parts salesman I spoke to wasn't particularly helpful, and only offered one particular drive from HP.
Second question: what are my options for replacing the drive? Are there a number of compatible drives, or am I forced to go with an HP?
Thanks for any help or advice you can offer!

I am having a similar issue with my Pavilion's dvd drive as well as on my parent's compaq presarios's dvd drive. Both drive make the grinding and belt slipping noise. Both of them fail to read dvds or cds often and require multiple ejects and retrys, but will both eventually read the disc. On my pavilion, when having trouble reading a disc and you try to mess with it under My Computer, it locks up My Computer and when i kill the process in task manager, it also kills explorer and I must reboot windows. Any ideas why these dvd drives will not work 100% of the time?
Pavilion Dm4 1165dx
2.4 ghz Core i5 M450
7200 rpm 500gb hd
4 gb ddr3

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Message was edited by: Gail - Added more info

Kappy wrote:
Could mean the optical drive is malfunctioning or that you have a defective disc. Try cleaning the disc on both surfaces as well as checking for scratches or defects.
Both the retail Tiger disc and the original OS X Installer Disc One are in perfect condition (at least to the naked eye). Neither will boot from the drive.
How to run hardware diagnostics for an Intel Mac
Boot from your original OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. After the chime press and hold down the "D" key until the diagnostic screen appears. Run the extended tests for a minimum of two or three hours. If any error messages appear note them down as you will need to report them to the service tech when you take the computer in for repair.
Some "common" error indicators:
SNS - sensor error
MEM - memory error
HDD - hard disk drive error
MOT - fan error
I would very much like to do this but can't get the discs to boot from the DVD drive.
In order to reset the PRAM you need to restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION-P-R keys until you hear three additional chimes. See Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
I do not have a COMMAND key on the only keyboard I have on hand that works on this iMac. What would be another key combination or an equivalent for a non-Apple keyboard?
Is it possible to boot directly from an external USB CD/DVD drive, and thus be able to use Disk Utilities to attempt a repair or reinstall?
Yes, you can boot from a USB or FireWire external hard drive or optical drive.
This is the route I will probably take since apparently the optical drive is toast.
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Not booting from DVD drive | Flashing Question mark and face folder S

Hey there! I am hoping one of you folks can help.
I noticed my iMac running really slow.
I could not find my OS disks, so I bought OS X Leopard
When I tried to boot from DVD it would flash the question/face folder for about 30 seconds then reboot normal. (I was able to install the OS. Just can't boot from the disk in order to run disk utility)
Time got away from me and now my system is REALLY slow...
I went and bought Disk Warrior
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Hey,
No, I'm not running Snow Leopard. Running Leopard. 10.5.8
I'm guessing the problem is either with my computer itself, or perhaps the DVD drive. Hard to tell. Maybe even something corrupt in my software?
My problem is:
I desperately need to run a disk utility of some sort, however am not able to make my computer use my OS disk or Disk warrior as a startup disk (either by holding down C, or by assigning it in System Utilities.)
I was hoping someone might have a tip, or trick to get my machine to use one of these disks as the startup disk.
Thanks!

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Another help source (if you haven't already done so).
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Click on all the troubleshooting topics & Support Articles that pertain to your issue.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801 Apple Portables: Troubleshooting the slot load optical disc drive
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The software had did have an update bhack in march/april and since that update it hasnt been the same since.
Which software?
Care to share which OS you are using?

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joeldm wrote:
I have a 24" iMac C2D with a 640GB drive that is 4GB away from being full. I have a Freenas NAS with another TB and two 1TB FW800 external. I have pretty much everything backed-up in one way or another, most of it a bit scatter-shot and hard to collate, so I want to reformat and reinstall OS X Snow Leopard to get a clean start and a freed-up drive.
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MUCH better will be to delete what you don't need, and/or archive old stuff and delete it.
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All the data that's now on your iMac (and any externals that are being backed-up) will be there. Things you've deleted may not be, depending on how long they were on your system, how often it was backed-up, and how old your oldest backup is. See #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
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Not booting from DVD drive | Flashing Question mark and face folder SOS!

Hey there! I am hoping one of you folks can help.
I noticed my iMac running really slow.
I could not find my OS disks, so I bought OS X Leopard
When I tried to boot from DVD it would flash the question/face folder for about 30 seconds then reboot normal. (I was able to install the OS. Just can't boot from the disk in order to run disk utility)
Time got away from me and now my system is REALLY slow...
I went and bought Disk Warrior
Same issue, only my drive spits out that disk. (I can run and burn other disks)
I won't discuss my failed attempts at getting help from the Apple store and by having the geniuses (not) call me. I would rather not pay an arm and a leg to have an approved repair center run the disk utility for me. I've already spent $169 on the OS and $100 on Disk Warrior... PLEASE HELP

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Hi,
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selinahillier wrote: Hi I have a HP Pavilion p6606f Desktop PC Windows 7 64-bit. I was trying to burn off a DVD and it will not reconize DVD's or games, but will reconize a CD. Please help Thanks
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Here is a link to NewEgg where these drives can be found.
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Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem.

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S/N :
{Removed for privacy}
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This question was solved.
View Solution.

It looks like the part number is the same. As long as the part number is the same, it is essentially the same part and should work without any issues. The only time that part may not work is if the part number is different. If any part is different from another part (firmware, hardware, etc.), it will have a different part number. As long as 461646-6C2 is the same on both, there shouldn't be any issue with replacing the drive.
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Faulty DVD Drive? Some questions pls.

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