windows vista CD/DVD DRIVE problems

[musicaddict1987]

hey there , i have a windows vista home premium . my CD/DVD drive was working just fine and now it isnt anymore i had the guys at the store where i bought the pc look at it and they said it was the readeritself so they went ahead and replaced it . the problem is it still doesnt work , when i go to computer tab to look at the drives the CD/DVD drive doesnt appear, what could be the problem? i remember doing a quick scan with [SPYBOT SEARCH AND DESTROY] and it shoud that [RIGHT MEDIA] was a problem so i went ahead and had it fix the problems. could that be it? please let me know, thanks guys.

[ronallandottk]

Before anything else, try a reboot. If after a couple of reboots the problem remains, read on.

Go to the PC's BIOS and check if the drive is detected. If not, check the settings for IDE (if it's an IDE drive) or SATA (if it's a SATA drive) and make sure they're set to "on" or "auto".

When an optical drive doesn't show up on My Computer, more often than not (maybe 90% of the time, at least in my experience) it's because the drive isn't hooked up properly, either the power supply cable is loose or unplugged, or the data cable is loose or unplugged.

When booting up, does the drive access light light up? If you press the eject button, does it open? When the PC goes through it's POST, does it detect the drive?

If it doesn't light up, or doesn't open up when you press the eject button, or the BIOS doesn't detect the drive, it's probably because the drive's power cable is either loose or unplugged.

If it lights up, and ejects, but doesn't show up on the BIOS, or the My Computer tab, then the data cable is either loose or unplugged.

If it lights up, and the light doesn't turn off, it's probably grounded/shorted.

If you know your way inside a computer, just open it up and check the cable connections of the drive. They should be securely connected to the rear of the drive, and to the motherboard.

If it still doesn't show up you may need to try a different data cable, or another spare power connector from the power supply. It's not that very likely that you'll get two bad drives in a row, so it may be something else, like a bad cable or a defective IDE or SATA port.

Spybot and the Right Media thing isn't probably relevant to your problem, it's just a tracking cookie removed by Spybot.

Hope this helps.

[musicaddict1987]

thank you so much i'll see what i can do , its frustrating . like i said this is my second drive and it isnt working, the light does light up but the pc doesnt detect the drive .

[musicaddict1987]

i have just made an observation , when i put a cd/dvd into the drive it tries to read it and after 3 attempts the light goes off. i still dont see the drive on COMPUTER

[ronallandottk]

If it lights up the power cable isn't the problem.

When it lights up when you insert a disc it's trying to recognize it, it stops when it already recognizes the disc.

Virtually all optical drives are plug and play, they "should" be recognized by Windows automatically.

It may be the data cable which isn't plugged in securely. If the cable is plugged in securely there are some ways to force Windows to find it, for starters try going to the Control Panel, then Admin Tools, then Computer Management. Click on Disk Management and see if your drive is there. It's possible it's there, maybe it just doesn't have a drive letter assigned to it.

[musicaddict1987]

okay so i went to device manager and it shows that the drive cannot start , what can be wrong? i tried what you told me but i see nothing i appreciate your help so far thank you so much .

[ronallandottk]

Have you tried going to Computer Management (not Device Manager)?

If it reports that the device cannot start, it may be the connection.

If the drive really doesn't show up on Windows, you really have to rule out whether the data/signal cable is plugged in correctly or not. In the vast majority of cases similar to yours, a loose power or data cable is the culprit. Since you report that the drive lights up, it may very well be the data cable.

[musicaddict1987]

yep i have done that it says THIS DEVICE CANOT START (CODE 10)

[ronallandottk]

Do you use iTunes? Try uninstalling it, and reboot.

iTunes supposedly doesn't have a version specifically for Vista so it tends to mess with the optical drive driver for some reason.

Uninstalling iTunes may solve the problem, maybe you can try that.

If you don't use iTunes, try removing the optical drive from the device manager and rebooting, that may reset the built-in driver.

[musicaddict1987]

k im uninstalling it now and deleting itunes (wich never worked) thanks so much man i appreciate the time youre taking to help me.