Why Does My DVD Drive Suddenly Stop My Laptop From Booting?

[Busybaz]

Lenovo G570 with original HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW drive which I have had for at least 6 years, running Windows 7 [I know!! But I like it and you can keep Windows 10].

Power is getting to the drive, light on and tray will open.

If F2 pressed for Setup before boot, after a very long wait, BIOS appears showing drive not detected. Similarly, if F12 pressed for Select Boot, only HDD drive is listed.

Drive not listed in My Computer

No entry at all [ie no yellow exclamation entry] for the drive in Device Manager. Have had some success getting an entry in Device Manager by Scanning for Hardware change [but still does not show in My Computer!!!?] but laptop still hangs at boot and drive disappears again.

I have not yet tried another drive as this rascal has seldom been used, so I don't think it should be clapped out - I have cleaned the contacts.


Could it possibly be a Windows Update causing problems? They did release an optional Lenovo one some time back for Radeon graphics which did NOT agree at all with the Lenovo Dual Graphics setup.

Anyone have any ideas? Any input would be most welcome.

Kind regards
Baz

 

[jay32267]

"BIOS appears showing drive not detected. Similarly, if F12 pressed for Select Boot, only HDD drive is listed."

If your BIOS is not recognizing the drive, I wouldn't focus on Windows at all. The BIOS needs to recognize the drive.

 

[DeadRam]

I think the DVD drive is bad. Windows will try to communicate with hardware for a long time. I bet Windows will eventually boot if you wait long enough. Remove the DVD drive is possible and see if your laptop boots faster.

 

[Busybaz]

Apologies for the delay in responding. Took me ages to convince a friend to lend me a DVD drive - when they did, it was IDE not SATA!
Splashed out £14 [I know,but why buy if you don't need to!] on a new unit, installed and now fully working [although my defunct unit had Blu-ray].

Congrats, DeadRam, the drive was bad.

Thanks for the input.
Baz