My Computer No Longer Thinks I have a DvD Drive at all.

DustCrow

New Member
I updated from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 about a month ago, and I've had no problems at all. I installed all my drivers and reinstalled programs and games, sometimes through internet downloads, and sometimes through a physical installation disk.

Yesterday, I decided I wanted to put some of my music on a physical disk for an old car that only takes CD's. The DvD Drive opens, takes my disk, closes, and the green light blinks as usual.. but now my computer doesn't recognize I have a disk in there, and it doesn't even recognize I have a DvD-Drive at all!

I took apart my PC and make sure everything was connected to power and my motherboard, and it appears to be connected just fine. I even tried plugging the DvD-Drive into an an extra port on my motherboard.

It looks like the brand is "Lightscribe" but when looking for drivers, I could only find downloads from Cnet and Softonic with lowish ratings, and I did try both downloads and it's fixed nothing!

Any suggestions? Thanks!
 

DustCrow

New Member
Look in device manager and see if there are any entries under cd/dvd rom drives. If there is an entry with a yellow question mark/exclamation point then download and run this to fix the registry error, reboot after running.

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9840807

Thanks for the Reply! Unfortunately, no where in Device Manager is there anything titled or relating to "DVD" or "DvD Drive" not even CD drive or anything close really. :(
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Ok then. We know its getting power since the drive spins up and light blinks. I would next try a different sata cable to make sure its not the cable. If a new cable doesn't make a difference then its most likely a bad dvd drive. Can you post an image of the device manager though?
 

DustCrow

New Member
Ok then. We know its getting power since the drive spins up and light blinks. I would next try a different sata cable to make sure its not the cable. If a new cable doesn't make a difference then its most likely a bad dvd drive. Can you post an image of the device manager though?

Here's the image of my Device Manager, I'll go see if I can find an extra sata cable around the house!
 

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johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Ok, just making sure. No drive shows or errors. So its either a bad drive or bad cable.
 

DustCrow

New Member
Ok, just making sure. No drive shows or errors. So its either a bad drive or bad cable.

Just tested a new cable and it's not working nor is anything new showing up in Device Manager. Is there something I would need to do to make it show up in device manager, or just by simply connecting the Drive, if the drive worked, it would pop up in device manager?

If I were to go purchase a new drive, is there a specific one, or somewhere specific you would recommend I purchase from? And with a new one, I should just be able to fit it in place, plug it all in, and when I turn my PC on it will work?

Thanks for all the help!
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Nothing new needed, just remove old and install new and hook up sata data and sata power cables. And you said you tried using a different sata port correct? Can you go into the bios to see if the bios detects the drive?
 

DustCrow

New Member
Nothing new needed, just remove old and install new and hook up sata data and sata power cables. And you said you tried using a different sata port correct? Can you go into the bios to see if the bios detects the drive?

I have tried different sata ports on the motherboard, yes, and certainly, I'm a little new to navigating the Bios directory, that's F12 on startup correct?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
The F12/DEL for BIOS would be your best bet. Usually there's a table of connected SATA devices and it should say the model or some sort of versioning string. If it doesn't even show up there then it's pretty toast as far as Windows ever seeing anything. Any sort of generic $15 DVD-RW drive should suffice, they're pretty common and equivalent these days.

Also, 'lightscribe' is just the technology to 'burn' your own CD label on specific lightscribe disks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe
 

DustCrow

New Member
The F12/DEL for BIOS would be your best bet. Usually there's a table of connected SATA devices and it should say the model or some sort of versioning string. If it doesn't even show up there then it's pretty toast as far as Windows ever seeing anything. Any sort of generic $15 DVD-RW drive should suffice, they're pretty common and equivalent these days.

Also, 'lightscribe' is just the technology to 'burn' your own CD label on specific lightscribe disks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe

I went out and purchased a new DvD drive and a new SATA cable. Still, nothing is working any differently.... But here's what it looks like in BIOS with my new drive hooked up (Links below are to images because they're too large to upload)

The Samsung thing you may see in the images is my Hard Drive, but the HL-DT-ST is the DvDDrive I purchased! So it's showing up in BIOS but not doing anything new?

Images:
http://i.imgur.com/ABbIx3R.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QszdHcJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZFrygHA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1mYC1AM.jpg
 

DustCrow

New Member
Would it be worth it to me to bring my PC to a repair store, or is there something else I may be able to try myself? Thanks!
 

DustCrow

New Member
Solved! Well, sorta! I'll be opening a new thread now in the Motherboard section because...

I discovered out of the 4 SATA ports my motherboard has, two of them work and two of them don't!

Thanks for all the help everyone!
 
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