Whats up here?

[Peter F]

Hi All,

Not sure what is happening to my vista laptop. Recently i have noticed that
i am unable to play my DVD's. More to the point I am unable to see the DVD
player in my computer.

What i have done to remedy the situation is as follows.

1. Booted up and checked the BIOS made sure that the CD was booting first
and HDD second.
2. Checked in My Computer properties there was no exclamation mark against
any hardware and i was unable to see my DVD detailed there.
3. The DVD player is an internal player and i am unable to detatch and
re-attach.

Please can anyone offer any help in solving this particular problem?

KR.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hi All,

Not sure what is happening to my vista laptop. Recently i have noticed that
i am unable to play my DVD's. More to the point I am unable to see the DVD
player in my computer.

What i have done to remedy the situation is as follows.

1. Booted up and checked the BIOS made sure that the CD was booting first
and HDD second.

Not related.

2. Checked in My Computer properties there was no exclamation mark against
any hardware and i was unable to see my DVD detailed there.

It means Windows doesn't see a problem; unfortunately, it doesn't look very
hard. For instance, it is not a hardware test.

3. The DVD player is an internal player and i am unable to detatch and
re-attach.

But you can uninstall the driver and reboot, which is often recommended for
related problems.

Please can anyone offer any help in solving this particular problem?

I can only try

 

[Peter F]

Hi Gene,

Thanks for the reply.

The point I was trying to make was that I CANNOT see the DVD anywhere in
windows. Not even to uninstall the drivers and reinstall.

Do you have any other ideas?

KR

 

[brush-head]

Have you tried scan for hardware changes? that may trigger the detection of
the drive.
The only time I had a problem similar to this under XP was on an old Compaq
notebook. That turned out to be the device itself had failed.
Good Luck

 

[Peter F]

Hi Brush-head,

Yes i have completed a Scan for hardware changes. but still did not pick up
the drive.

Do you have any other thoughts

 

[Peter Foldes]

See the following
http://kgiii.info/windows/XP/general/missing_CD-DVD_drives.html

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Try the steps outlined here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[brush-head]

I know you can't play DVD's but have you tried a CD?
Maybe a CD with just data on it - can you use explorer?
If that don't work it may be the drive has packed up.
If still under warranty then contact supplier.
If not, use the manufacturers option as a last resort because they tend to
be expensive.
I picked up a DVD writer in the UK for the Compaq I mentioned for about
36GBP whereas Compaq want about 150! Only issue I had was that the screw
heads securing the bay were 000 which is very small & locating a screw
driver to get the old drive out took some time. The driver came in handy
though 'cos my son wanted to upgrade his Acer with the same model drive.
Oh only other issue was because the Compaq had a strange shape facia on the
drive door I had to remove the facia from the new drive. doesn't look pretty
but it works.
Good Luck

Hi Brush-head,

Yes i have completed a Scan for hardware changes. but still did not pick
up
the drive.

Do you have any other thoughts

 

[Noel Paton]

Hi Gene,

Thanks for the reply.

The point I was trying to make was that I CANNOT see the DVD anywhere in
windows. Not even to uninstall the drivers and reinstall.

Do you have any other ideas?

KR

Can you actually see the drive is present n the BIOS/CMOS setup
screen??
If not, then you have a hardware problem.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Can you actually see the drive is present n the BIOS/CMOS setup
screen??
If not, then you have a hardware problem.

Good catch. Thanks for that.

I also meant for the OP to go to Device Manager to uninstall the drive
followed by a reboot, but I couldn't tell from his reply whether that is
what he did.