DVD drive issues

[winslow33]

Hello

Last night I started burning some data onto a DVD+R drive for my friend. half way through burning, the software (Roxio Creator DE) reported that it stopped after saving 1.2 GB onto the disk. thinking it was an issue with the software, I tried taking out the disk. I pushed the eject button but nothing happened. When I turned off the computer, I inserted a paperclip into the little emergency eject hole and pried it open with a knife. took out the DVD, restarted (took lothnger than normal to boot), and went to My Computer,and what do you know but the DVD drive doesnt show up. Same in Device Manager... So I pop the drive open (the button worked this time), put in a CD-ROM, and went to My Computer again, no luck.Go to take the CD out again, drive wont open...

So, it opens when theres no disk in the drive, but when i put one in it wont come open again. And as far as the computers concerned theres no CD/DVD drive in the thing!

Any ideas? First thing I thought is the drive's fried, but i'm hoping somebody's gonna tell me different cuz i dont really have the money right now to buy a new one. Nor am I sure how to go about replacing one in a laptop... Is it similar to replacing a drive in a desktop computer? I've never had to take the back off a laptop before. My frontier ends at desktops. lol

[hey_moe]

Does it show up in your BIOS.Have ya tried changing out the line or the power line to the drive.

[winslow33]

yep, shows up in my BIOS, and yep, tried changin out the cables, no luck.

[hey_moe]

If it shows up in the BIOS, the cable should be good. Have you tried to reinstall the drivers.

[winslow33]

well I was going to try that, but I'm not sure I can becuase the drvers arn't avaliable for download being that such optical drives are automatically detected by every operating system since Windows 95. And, I cant re-install them from the XP disk because the drive wont show up in Device Manager...

On a side note, I've tried the MS Knowledge Base arcticle below but to no luck.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/314060

[winslow33]

Ok I think it's fixed now ( I hope)

Ive noticed over the last few days sometimes the drive will appear for a few moments in Device Manager before dissapearing again. It stayed long enough for me to check out the drivers, wich were not signed, and there was no information about them. avaliable I managed to re-install the drivers off the XP disk as you sugested after all and it appears to have fixed the problem.

Thank you a thousand times over!:ernae: