Computer doesn't recognize optical drives

[MILLO]

Hello, everyone, ignorant newbie here...

I have a very old CyberPower compusaur from early 2002 (if I remember correctly) running on WinXP. A few weeks ago, [I believe] after one of Windows' famous updates the computer stopped recognizing my DVD-ROM and CDRW drives. Any idea what happened? Sorry if it's obvious to you. Funny thing is: I haven't used the floppy drive maybe since 2002, yet that is still listed on "my computer".

I just started getting help, but I'll keep looking. If you can help, it'll be much appreciated.

 

[aford10]

Since this is older hardware, I'm assuming they are IDE drives?
Are they on the same cable?
Does anything show up under device manager?

 

[shabaa]

Going on the premise that these are IDE drives are they showing up in the boot screen or in the bios? If not... then disconnect them from the IDE cable on the back of the units (while they are off) one at a time..... in other words power them up connected individually and see if either one appears in the bios and then windows... if only one of them shows up after testing individually then possibly the one that does not show up is toast.... the update may have had no bearing on the failure but rather a freak of timing...... it happens .... especially after a reboot. This is only one of several different possibilities..... It is not the only viable answer

 

[lamjan]

This has happened to me three times and Dell walked me through the fix. If I can find the old chat, I'll post it. If I remember right, there was a line that had to be deleted in the system configuration. Maybe that will ring a bell for someone smarter than me.