Cd drive not present anymore

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

monere

Distinguished
Oct 13, 2012
200
10
18,685
Hi,

I just started the computer after waking up and when it got to the Windows XP screen (the black one with the Windows logo and loading bar beneath it) it would just keep loading for minutes upon minutes without logging onto Windows. I got pissed off of so much waiting and hit the restart button, after which the same thing happened.

I restarted again, and again it wouldn't log onto Windows. I kept restarting for 3-4 times and then I decided to try safe mode with networking. After 1 long minute of staring at a black screen with some files on it the system would finally log onto Windows at which point I had no clue what to do and hit the restart button again.

After doing this, the system would restart BUT this time it would freeze at the start screen, the one that displays the mother board. At this point I totally freaked out cause I had a strange feeling it is either the MB or the HDD that got screwed. I didn't know what to do and so I shut down the computer. I let it shut for about 1 minute, then I turned it on again and this time it would go past that splash screen (the one that display the mother board) and log onto Windows, without taking so long this time.

So now everything seems OK, I can use my computer as usual (proof is that I am typing this post right now) BUT I just tried to insert a CD into my CD/DVD drive so I can create a Linux CD just in case things go awry (that indefinite loading time of Windows really freaked me out).

Anyway, as I was saying I wanted to insert a blank CD into my optical drive so I can burn a Linux ISO image onto it and create a live CD when all of a sudden SURPRISE! I can't open the CD/DVD drive anymore. Normally when I pressed the open/eject button on the CD drive a green led would begin to flash and sounds would be made for a few seconds until the drive would finally open. Well, none of these happen anymore. I can click on that open/eject button all day long but nothing really happens.

I also opened Windows explorer and checked to see if Windows sees my CD/DVD drive and it doesn't see it. Yesterday everything worked fine. But today, after I started the PC the optical unit doesn't get recognized anymore.

What's to be done? I would like to know if it really is the optical unit that is faulty or if it's something else. But I don't know how to find this out. Can you please share a few troubleshooting tips or tests that I can run to locate the culprit?

My PC is Intel Core2 Quad 2,4GHz (that would be the CPU) on a P5N-E SLI Asus MoBo, 2x1GB RAM (Geil at 800 MHz I think) memory, ATI Radeon 4650 with 1GB memory (that would be the graphics card), and a 500GB Seagate Barracuda HDD. Oh, and the bloody optical unit is a LG DVD RW something (sorry but I don't know how to find more about it as I can't find it under Device Manager, either)

If you need any more info let me know. If not, I am looking forward to hear your expert advice on what is wrong with my hardware :)
 
Firstly, you should check the wires in the case, check if they are in right places. But your problem seems very weird to me. My guess would be that your mobo died. So it can not recognize the drive. Alternatively you could connect your dvd drive to a different PC and see if it works. If it does than it's probably the mobo.
 


I think I will try to connect the drive to another PC just to see it works. Ithought about this myself but I waited first to hear another opinion.

But is it possible to still be able to use the computer when a mobo "dies"?

I mean, besides this cd drive issue everything works perfectly (well, almost perfectly if you leave the slightly longer time it needs for the PC to boot aside). You'd expect nothing to work in case of mobo failure.
 
My guess would be that your mobo died.
Click to expand...

WTF? You're suggesting to cut one's nose off to spite one's face.

Disconnect your ODD and see if system boots.

Check/replace SATA cable, connect ODD to a different SATA port on motherboard.

Swap ODD or try your ODD in another machine.

I suggest you do this ONE step at a time to clarify what/where the problem was.

 
If the motherboard is in fact dead, you can probably use the other components, just test them before on different system. And you should probably try what honuok said. But I don't believe that symptoms described in this post are ODD related.
 
DVD Drives do go wrong, so dont be supprised if it hasnt..

Optical drives are far cheaper than they used to be, i remember buying a hp cd writer for over £700 now they cost around £20 for a dvd writer..

Also as things are made so cheap now some are going to fail...

In anycase i dont feel its the motherboard... check your drive in another machine...

It sounds like its going to be a ide device as apposed to a sata..

Also read this link

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/dvd-driver-corrupt-in-the-registry/874e7a9e-3825-43d1-9b06-2bacc1184f37
 


Holy Cow! You paid 700 pounds for an ODD?????? I don't think I even saw in my entire life an ODD costing 100 pounds, let alone 700 lol.

Anyway, I just removed the SATA and the other wider band (sorry I don't know how it's called) and dust it off a little then turn the PC on and now everything is back to normal. Too bad I can't figure out why this happened out of the blue sky.

I tend to believe however that is indeed mobo's fault or at least the HDD's fault as every once in a while the system (including mobo's start screen) take a lot of time to load and this has never happened to my computer until the last few (2-3) months.

Oh well, I intend to buy a new PC this year anyway, so won't stress too much about it. My only concern is that I didn't back up the HDD so I hope nothing crazy will happen to it.

Thanks for the tips everyone. If this happens again I now know where to come
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom