PC unable to recognize CD drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jonathan
  • Start date Start date
J

Jonathan

I have a compact disc high speed DVD+ rewritable drive on
my PC and I notice that now when I use my PC it no longer
recognizes the drive. The CD icon in "My Computer"
option dissappeared; I'm no longer able to open the CD
drive; and I don't see the CD drive when I open up the
system configuration menu using F2 prior to starting the
PC. I notice, however, that when I start up and shut
down my PC a little green light on my CD drive blinks so
I'm not sure if the drive still works and there's some
sort of system problem or vice versa. Please offer any
solutions I can try to fix the problem.

Thank You, Jonathan
 
If your drive will not open and the LED on the front indicates power to the
drive, there is an internal problem with the drive. Verify by doing the
following:

Open your computer only after you have removed the power cable and have
touched the computer case metal to disharge static, and remove the ribbon
cable from the CD drive (the only cable connected to it that is 2 inches
wide). Make sure the power cable is firmly connected to the drive (the other
cable has a set of black, red and yellow wires). Turn on the computer and
try to open the drive, prior to entering Windows. If it doesn't open and the
activity LED is flashing, replace it. If no activity light, replace the
power cable (red, black, yellow wired cable) for the drive with one that is
loose inside the case - there are usually spare power cables hanbing around
inside the case, depending on the power supply and it's power capacity. If
no other is available, borrow the hard drives power cable for the test.

If the drive opens, try reseating that 2 inch wide ribbon cable on both
ends - CD drive end and the motherboard end.

Boot into your BIOS Setup to verify the drive exists in here. If it does,
it's probably a Windows issue. your BIOS setup utility is accessed usually
by pressing either F1, F2, DEL, F10 when first turning on the computer.
Depending on the manufacturer will depend on where you find info on the
drive. Try under Advanced BIOS settings or just Advanced. Look for anything
IDE.
If it's seen in the BIOS, restart and see if Windows picks it up. If not, do
the following:

Also check to see if the jumper block on the drive is set to Cable Select
(CS).
On the back of the drive (if IDE drive which it probably is), there are a
couple of rows of pins like so [: : : :]. There will be a small plastic
block placed over the two pins in these rows. Usually, on the top of the
drive is a key depicting how to configure these pins. You want to verify
whether or not the drive is using cable select (CS). If it is, and this is
the ONLY optical drive in your computer and is not chained of your hard
drive cable, set this pin in the MASTER position. Restart and see what
happens.

I've seen on a couple of occasions where the jumper block was configured as
cable select and the drive was being recognized by the BIOS. Moving to
Master fixed it.
 
Back
Top