Identifying my external CD/DVD drive.

[PC Illiterate]

Hello there!

I was supplied with an external USB CD/DVD drive when I bought my laptop from a second-hand dealer. For months I'd used everything fine, including the CD writing and reading function, until I explored the use of the DVD writing function. Now, basically nothing works!

It seems it is running on an XP plug & play driver. However, I cannot find out anywhere on the actual hardware or in the system window what the make or model of the drive is. I got no documentation with the drive or software. I'm convinced that it's a driver issue, though I could very well be wrong. Therefore, I'd like to identify the hardware so I can locate the manufacturer's driver.

Please, does anyone have any helpful suggestions for going about this?

[peterhuang913]

what does it say on the drive itself?

[PC Illiterate]

OK, three icons/logos containing the follwoing info:

1) DVD R/RW
2) RW DVD & Re-writable
3) Compact Disc Re-writable - Ultra Speed.

Underneath it hosts some common sense warnings (don't play with it in the bath tub etc).

If I open the drive right up and turn it over and peer to the back it has two codes:

>PPE - PS<
JRS3 H1-2

I've googled these in the hope that it would lead me to a manufacturer but it didn't. :-( Actually I think that first code refers to the kind of plastic used in it's manufacture. (from the type of google results I got)

[peterhuang913]

in the device manager, what does it show up as? usually under drives or usb list

[PC Illiterate]

Device manager says the following:

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA408Nf USB DEVICE

The driver is a windows supplied driver. Hope this helps.