ThinkPad & XPpro has "lost" its' CD drive

[PCGuy]

I've got this 1 y/o ThinkPad that has suddenly lost the DVD/combo drive.
Nothing shows in My Computer, but the drive is seen in device manager with a
yellow exclamation mark saying the driver is installed but cannot connect to
the device. Tried to connect an external USB CD drive and get the same
results. Could the device drivers be corrupt? How do I extract new ones?

 

[Kelly]

Without knowing more, see if this helps:

Save the file below to your hard drive. Navigate to where you saved it and
double click the file. A confirmation dialog will appear when the script is
done. You may need to reboot for the change to take effect.

Restore CD/DVD in Explorer
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/xp_cd_dvd_fix.vbs

Troubleshooting Device Conflicts with Device Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q310126

Troubleshooting Device Manager Issues in Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_dm.htm

--
All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

 

[Alex Nichol]

I've got this 1 y/o ThinkPad that has suddenly lost the DVD/combo drive.
Nothing shows in My Computer, but the drive is seen in device manager with a
yellow exclamation mark saying the driver is installed but cannot connect to
the device.

Possibly a driver type file (usually associated with burning software)
has gone AWOL, leaving an orphan in registry. To tidy up, get a
registry patch file, cdgone.reg, from
www.aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip, extract it, r-click on it and merge
it into the registry and reboot

You will then need to reinstall any burning software that you use.