cd & dvd gone south

I just replaced a DVD rom drive that decided to die.

Since your computer was in storage and moved around some, did you open it up and check your connections? I'm thinking this maybe your problem.

Did you try the trouble shooter in Windows? It will walk you throgh getting either the drivers reloaded or updated. I can see where that would be a problem though if you can't atleast get the cd drive to recognize the disk.

It does seem strange if the drives were working before you put the computer in storage that they would both die, at the same time, from not being used.

Keep us updated, if I can't help someone is sure to come along that can solve the problem.

John

It could be from moisture or dust or both. Depends on how long its been in storage.

I had a similar problem happen when I moved from Minnesota to Texas a couple years ago. I did post a thread at: Tech Support Guy. If you're running XP, here's what fixed my system: Restore CD/DVD Drives

It's worth a shot. At the time I was dual-booting (98SE/XP), and my CD Drive would show on 98SE, but not on XP. Let me know if this helps.

This is an odd coincidence. I had a similar issue with an XP machine within the last week. On closer examination,an error code “39” was revealed. I could clearly see from the driver information in the properties dialog of the hardware manager that the system was failing to load the CD/DVD driver. Although I could see the drive in device management, the icon for the drive was no longer present in the “My Computer” explorer window. XP would redetect the drive, but failure to install the driver with an error code 39 was a constant.

If this is similar to the problem you are having, you may want to check the following links. The first is an old blog post that gives some credibility to a tool provided by Microsoft to address the issue (it convinced me to try the tool, rather than a manual registry edit), even if all of the circumstances don’t apply to your situation.

http://radified.com/blog/archives/000240.html

The second is a document from Microsoft outlining the underlying causes and the necessary steps to repair it. In this document you will find a download link for a tool (named “Guided Help”), that will allow you to make the required registry changes without having to manually search and edit. This tool also allows you to reverse the changes if the attempt is ineffective.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314060

There is not quite enough detail in your post for me to tell if your situation is completely similar to the one I had, but this repair worked perfectly for me. Please read the information carefully, and if it applies, you can decide if you want to give it a go or not. I am not a certified tech, nor an expert by any means, so any changes you may decide to make are purely at your own risk when dealing with the registry. I offer this information only for your viewing pleasure. I hope this assists in pointing you the direction of a solution. Good Luck!

Thank you Cathexis...indeed it was an error code 39 and the similarities are very close. I have both links now and will give it a go. No problem with editing registry as restore works well. As long as I get my monster up and running again. Thanks much to both of you for your help. I'll let you know what happens.

Had to print out the registry editing info cause this kiosk (internet cafe thing) won't let me download guided help...bummer. Oh well...at least it's a start. Now...if I don't crash it...again...I should be good to go, hopefully.