No cd or dvd drive, whats happened!!!

lovebargains

Oooh blimey! Booted up computer this morning to be greeted by my cd and dvd drives now have a red question mark next to them. Apparantly they no longer exist! Opened device manager, they arent even listed. Tried roll back driver, again they are not listed. Add remove hardware, and again there isnt even an option to add these devices! I have added a dvdrw drive, about 2 weeks ago, and have been using it and the cd drive, although the dvdrw drive does or rather did seem to hang, when using it. tried rebooting, and get a message press F1 for help F2 to set up ( without turning off and losing this message not sure what it was!) anyway, hard drive ok, floppy drive ok, set primary and slave drives to auto, still nothing.
System restore, tried twice, rolled back over a week, no joy. Its as if they never existed, and I dont know why!
Tried everything that I know what to do, but obviously not the right thing!!!
Any ideas guys????

Need_More_Money_2

Can you tell if there is power to the drives? Does the eject button work?

Seems odd that both stopped working though. I assume you've checked the connections. Are they both connected to same IDE controller?

Sc0oter

If they are both on the same IDE connector then it ould be the cable thats knackeredr

lovebargains

Need_More_Money wrote:

Can you tell if there is power to the drives? Does the eject button work?

Seems odd that both stopped working though. I assume you've checked the connections. Are they both connected to same IDE controller?

Yes they are both still powered, i can open and put a disc in both drives!

Need_More_Money_2

As Sc0oter says it could be the IDE cable. Have you got another cable to try? Try connecting only one of them at a time (check master/slave settings).
You could swap the HD cable, but then if the cable is at fault, PC probably won't boot as it won't see HD.
When you boot up the PC you often see a list of connected devices (e.g. IDE controllers, Drives, PCI cards etc). Do the drives show up there?

Have you checked in the BIOS to see if they are detected/enabled?

lovebargains

Need_More_Money wrote:

As Sc0oter says it could be the IDE cable. Have you got another cable to try? Try connecting only one of them at a time (check master/slave settings).
You could swap the HD cable, but then if the cable is at fault, PC probably won't boot as it won't see HD.
When you boot up the PC you often see a list of connected devices (e.g. IDE controllers, Drives, PCI cards etc). Do the drives show up there?

Have you checked in the BIOS to see if they are detected/enabled?

i will look into that little lot now! Thanks

tigermatt

I presume you have tried simply restarting the PC. I get this happen to me all the time and that is my first way to try and fix it.

It does sound strange that both drives have gone though. Mkae sure the IDE connections are firmly inserted inside, and that the IDE cable is firmly pushed into the motherboard (but don't push it too hard and break your mainboard!)

If that still doesn't fix it then either the IDE cable is broken or the controller or slot on your motherboard where the IDE cable connects is broken. Try a new IDE cable.

lovebargains

Thanks everyone, problem sorted! Opened case up, and one connection was a tad loose, shoved it back, restarted, and hey presto, all working fine!

Need_More_Money_2

lovebargains wrote:

Thanks everyone, problem sorted! Opened case up, and one connection was a tad loose, shoved it back, restarted, and hey presto, all working fine!

Great stuff :T

tigermatt

tigermatt wrote:

I presume you have tried simply restarting the PC. I get this happen to me all the time and that is my first way to try and fix it.

It does sound strange that both drives have gone though. Mkae sure the IDE connections are firmly inserted inside, and that the IDE cable is firmly pushed into the motherboard (but don't push it too hard and break your mainboard!)

If that still doesn't fix it then either the IDE cable is broken or the controller or slot on your motherboard where the IDE cable connects is broken. Try a new IDE cable.

Well done

sco0ter

good when someone lets you know when its fixed