Satellite A210-12U - DVD RW Drive will recognise DVDs but not CDs

Question

I've got a 4yr-old Toshiba Satellite laptop (Model: A210-12U) which I recently restored using the recovery CD - it's running Vista SP2.
Please bear with me as this may be a long-ish story, but it helps to explain my problem.
Around a year ago, a virus made its way onto my laptop and almost destroyed the OS - I'd consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable software-wise having studied IT at college, and so set about the long process of trying to fix my laptop without resorting to the recovery CD.
It was a patch job, but after a month or so I had it working again and it was fine for a further few months or so, before I noticed that my DVD RW Drive would no longer read and/or burn CDs. I spent hours trawling internet forums for help without any luck and was subsequently convinced that it was a hardware problem.
As I needed to use a CD burner, my cousin lent me his USB DVD RW drive and this didn't work, meaning that logic suggested it wasn't a physical problem with the drive, rather that it was more likely a problem with the registry/OS. This wasn't surprising seeing as I'd done a basic patch job following the virus infection a few months earlier.
After becoming increasingly frustrated with my laptop in general, I backed up my data onto a portable HD and used the recovery CD which came with my laptop. The laptop booted the CD up when it was outside of the OS (as per the instructions that came with it) and restored the entire computer to its original state (and solving a lot of the problems that were caused by the virus in the process).
I've spent the last week re-installing programs, copying back data etc. and was in the process of installing some software from a CD today, when I noticed that the laptop was having difficulties accessing the drive. Windows Explorer knows the drive is there; it is listed in "My Computer" and will also have the little CD icon alongside the pointer when it is trying to load the CD up - suggesting it knows there is a CD in there.
However, the drive itself will still read DVDs which suggests it could be a physical problem with the drive itself (I read somewhere about the laser having to change its angle accordingly when reading CDs and DVDs). I question this however, as the computer was able to read the recovery CD when I was in the process of a complete restore (and it was having the same difficulties reading CDs in Windows before the restore).
I've tried all the methods suggested in similar posts on this forum - Microsoft Fix It, Uninstalling the drivers etc. to no avail... So yes, I am pretty much stumped and am wondering if anyone can help?
The DVD RW Drive is listed in the Device Manager as HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20N ATA Device.
Thanks,
Ben

Answer 1

Hi Ben
In my opinion it is hardware related issue. You are right about lens position. It must be calibrated for CDs and also for DVD. If the optical disc drive cannot read one of these medias in general it can be lens calibration problem.
To be honest ODDs for this old A210 are not expensive anymore. I recommend you to buy new one or used one on eBay. Exchange it and test the functionality.
To be honest I dont believe there is some trick that can help you to get it working again.