I'd like to start by saying "thank you" for the help I have received in the PAST, more recently with my difficulty reinstalling Windows after wiping my laptop hard drive clean. Thanks, all and thank you, BackDated, in particular.

I'm writing today to hopefully engage your help with the following problem affecting my desktop (not the recently reformatted laptop). Sudddenly, my cd/rw drive is not working. It will not play anything. Not only is it not working, it's a blank screen in the Windows SYSTEM Info window. It does not even appear in the list of storage devices one sees when exploring "My Computer". However, my AIDA 32 summary tells me that I have a SONY CD-RW CRX230EE OPTICAL drive (which worked fine until yesterday). The computer has not been moved, no hardware has been installed, nor have successive scans by Webroot Spy Sweeper, McAffee VirusScan Enterprise, Microsoft's own malware removal tool and SPYBOT indicated any problems.

How can I get the drive back? Here are some specs on the computer in case:

OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600

Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1505 Mhz

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P2.00, 10/28/2004

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB


Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Have you or anyone else opened the case recently, touched any cables? Probably not, but let's exclude the obvious first. Second, how long have you had that drive? Unlike me, drives have lives, and do die. If it's relatively new, we can scratch that one as well. If not, we can KEEP that idea in the back of our minds.nope, no one has moved it or opened it. i've had the unit for close to 3 years now. i use the drive minimally, basically to install software and, very rarely, to listen to music. never used it to burn anything, for example...

thank you for taking the time to respond.

The drive can be recognized in windows and still not be functional. THe ideal way would be to try that drive in another machine to see if it works. At 3 years of age, even with light use, it is suspect.

I would delete the drive in device manager and reboot the machinne. What happens now?