Lost my CD/DVD Drive-Windows 7

Sublime_2

It worked for me. Did you click on the Softpedia Secure Download (US) zip?

Majic

Thanks Sublime I downloaded but it didn't make any difference.

Sorry esuhl, there seems to be some confusion. Listed in the BIOS is my Sata:3m-STM3500418. Is this my hard-drive or my cd/dvd drive?

This is the only thing listed under Storage.

Am I right in saying the iTunes is a red herring and this is a hardware problem and I should take my PC back to the shop

esuhl

Majic wrote: »

Thanks Sublime I downloaded but it didn't make any difference.

If the BIOS can't see the drive, no software running under the OS will be able to.

Majic wrote: »

Sorry esuhl, there seems to be some confusion. Listed in the BIOS is my Sata:3m-STM3500418. Is this my hard-drive or my cd/dvd drive?

This is the only thing listed under Storage.

That device is a Maxtor 500GB hard drive. I'm not sure whether the "storage" section of the CMOS settings refers specifically to fixed storage devices (i.e. hard drives and solid state drives) - there might be a separate section for optical drives, etc. If not, then it sounds like the BIOS isn't can't see the DVD drive at all.

Majic wrote: »

Am I right in saying the iTunes is a red herring and this is a hardware problem and I should take my PC back to the shop

I'm not familiar with iTunes, but I would have thought it extremely unlikely that it could affect the BIOS's ability to detect the DVD drive.

Personally I'd try to exhaust all possibilities to fix the problem before taking it back to the shop. Did you check the cabling as I suggested?

Are you able to connect the drive to a different SATA interface on the motherboard? Are you able to try using a different SATA cable? Or connect the drive using a different power connector from the PSU?

Painkiller

Did you follow BackOnTrack's suggestion of checking the connections? If a drive disappears from my pc it usually means a sata cable has worked its way loose. I disconnect the sata cable at both ends then reconnect them.

As esuhl writes above, try a different sata cable and a different power connection from the psu.

Majic

The cd/dvd drive is now working, it must have been a loose wire. I unplugged everything and started again yesterday. No change.

I turn my machine on this morning at the drive is working.

Thanks to everyone who tried to help

DoubleTop_2

glad you have it sorted, one of the more common ones in Windows7 that I get asked is about the setting in "Folder Options". By default it sets "Hide empty drives in the Computer Folder" to checked, which in some machines results in a missing CD/DVD drive, normally a laptop though but worth knowing

DT.