Sony BWU-500S Desktop Blu-Ray drive Won’t Read

[chane]

About this drive https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/sony-bwu-500s-review?page=35
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/sony-bwu-500s-12x-blu-ray-disc-writer/features.html , I have the BWU-500S, serial # 1007338L411. Though it’s 10 year old it’s gotten very little use, so how likely that any optical or electromechanical parts would be defective with such infrequent use? I have it installed in an ancient Dell Dimension 8300, Windows XP Pro SP2. The pc runs fine and I use it as part of my redundant file backup system. Of course, I keep this old desktop off the internet and its hardware’s too old to play BD movies, but I never had a problem playing DVD movies, though I seldom even do that. But I now need the BWU-500S for ripping CD tracks.

I think the drive may have stopped working when I tried and failed to uninstall an old version of Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 some weeks ago via Control Panel. Ever since when Win XP loads there’s a Nuance message, Dragon tries to install and then prompts me to install the CD. I finally persuaded Nuance Support to create an .exe file which did successfully installed Dragon. But after Shutdown and reloading Win XP the BWU-500S still won’t read any DVDs or CDs.

I checked connections of the BWU-500S’s power and data cables and Windows Device Manager says the drive is enabled and is operating normally. But every time I inserted a disc I hear something but not the motor spinning up to read the disc. And in Windows Explorer when I click on the drive it says “please insert a disc”, with the disc already loaded. Is a corrupt driver file most likely the problem?

As you probably know Sony sold its Optiarc division https://www.optiarcinc.com/list-drives.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optiarc . But I don’t see any indication that Vinpower Digital supports the BWU-500S or BD5300S.
https://www.vinpowerdigital.com/downloads?utf8=✓&category=8911&keyword=Sony+bwu-500s

A purple colored Sony Software Disc Rev. 9.30W DVD came with the BWU-500S. Assuming the device driver might be on it, I inserted that DVD just before Windows loaded, hoping the drive would read a driver or some .exe file. But it did nothing.

Assuming the BWU-500S drive didn’t have a physically destructive hardware failure, I then thought of going into Control Panel > Add Hardware and trying to get Win XP to recognize the BWU-500S as new hardware. But I haven’t done this yet. Should I try this? But if it asks me to load the driver what should I do if don’t have the driver to load from a USB flash drive? Or is the driver that’s already loaded probably not corrupted and should I just proceed with the rest of the Control Panel New Hardware install steps?

Or should I try something else?

[october262]

first try via the control panel to uninstall the drive, restart your computer
and let windows reinstall the drive then try reading a disc.

[chane]

first try via the control panel to uninstall the drive, restart your computer
and let windows reinstall the drive then try reading a disc.

I tried doing so but problem still remains.

If you have ever known users who had luck fixing a problem like this by using a particular cleaner disc please suggest one or more makes or models. Otherwise, it's time to buy another drive.