One day you turn on your computer and cannot see the CD-ROM or the DVD-ROM drive in the My Computer window anymore. This problem is very common for laptop and notebook computers and might be caused by a failed drive or by corrupted software. You can try the following repair steps before you decide that your drive is bad.
- I found this solution on Microsoft website and it helped me many times to fix the problem with a missing DVD/CD-ROM drive. I always try removing the CD/DVD drive from the device manager first and if it doesn’t fix the problem I go with removing the registry entry. Method 1 worked very well for me.
- If the above mentioned methods didn’t work for you, you can try to reseat the optical drive. Overtime the CD-ROM drive connector might get oxidized and a simple drive reseating can fix the problem. Try to remove the drive from the laptop and put it back. See if it will fix the problem.
- You can also try to boot from any bootable CD to see if you laptop recognize the CD-ROM drive on BIOS level. Put any bootable CD (Live Linux CD, Windows XP CD, Windows 2000 CD, etc) into the CD-ROM drive and change the boot order to start from the CD-ROM drive. If you laptop starts to boot from the CD, then the drive is recognized in BIOS and most likely it operates properly. In this case look for a software problem. It might be necessary to reload the operating system to fix the software problem. If you cannot boot your laptop from a bootalbe CD, then the drive might be bad itself.
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March 2nd, 2012 at 3:42 pm
@ lok sunder,
Try to boot the laptop from a bootable CD or DVD (Windows OS installation disc, Toshiba recovery disc, live Linux CD, etc…)
Can you boot from a CD?
I’m just trying to figure out if your problem is OS related or there is something wrong with the drive itself.
If the laptop will boot from a CD but DVD drive doesn’t work properly in Windows, most likely it’s Windows related issue.
February 24th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
my laptop is TOSHIBA SATELLITE L20 model in now dvd drive is not working; when i put cd inside it wont read the cd, when it spining sounds like a motor running how rectify this problem, help me to rectify the problem
November 8th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Thanks so much! The Microsoft fix-it worked! Not sure if removing my cd Creator from computer caused it or if an update. Whatever. Its working better than ever.
September 17th, 2011 at 6:43 am
@ Asad,
It’s possible the DVD drive is failing. It’s hard to tell without testing the laptop with another DVD drive.
You have two options:
1. Replace the internal DVD drive.
2. Buy an external USB DVD drive.
September 17th, 2011 at 3:44 am
i tried every thing but nothing happen
first option was using before it work but only for 15 or 20 min and now it’s also not working any other solution like first one…..please i can’t watch movies…….lol
August 13th, 2011 at 3:45 am
It really work for my missing drives after i tried “go with removing the registry entry”.. thanks for the info..^^
December 17th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
I dont have drive when I click on my computer
so i am not able to install stuff from CD or dvd disc etc
can you help me ??
I already dwonload driver install detector but does make a difference
have any other ideas?
March 25th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Hello,
I also have HP 6720s and second option also worked for me. i just reset the DVD ROM and now its back in my computer. But i dont know for how long. Lets see and hope for the best.
Regards,
Waqas Ahmed
November 24th, 2009 at 1:35 am
thanks for this link. Gr8 help
November 24th, 2009 at 1:03 am
Excellent Post… I downloaded the tool from Microsoft and my problem was fixed. Now I can view my CD Rom.
Many thanks