infj23

My hard drive crashed so I replaced it with no problems. Installed XP from my CD (I had previously upgraded to Vista--may or may not re-install that upgrade, so running XP for now). XP loaded without any trouble, and then I installed Office from my CD.

As I was trying to get everything to work (first problem was I could not get on the Internet), I wen to Dell's site to get the drivers I needed. Once I got a few drivers installed, I could get on the Internet. I was still missing some drivers and couldn't figure out from Dell's site which I needed, so I bought Driver Detective, which scanned my machine and downloaded the drivers I needed. After getting my drivers installed, I have been restoring my files online through Carbonite.

Driver Detective's first scan, and every scan since then, shows Philips CDRW/DVD SCB5265-0 as "unplugged." I do not know when in the process the CD drive started having problems. Obviously it worked well enough to load XP and Office. The drive does not show up on the "My Computer" page or in Device Manager.

Laptop is Dell Inspiron 8600.

Any ideas?
Thanks to all!

TriggerFinger

Device Manager shows everything OK? CD/DVD drive works without issues? If yes, I would not worry about a thing. I am not familiar with Drive Detective (and I do not use it) so I cannot say if it is a programming flaw or something... best is to test with Linux or another operating system to be sure your hardware is working fine.

infj23

No, the CD/DVD drive does not show up in device manager, does not function, and does not show up on the My Computer screen. I mentioned the Driver Detective program because that is what first brought the problem to my attention. Until then, the drive had worked when I wanted it to (installing XP and Office) but quite sometime after installing those two programs. I don't know when it quit; Driver Detective is what made me first notice I had a problem.

TriggerFinger

CD/DVD drive not showing in My Computer? Does not function when in Windows? But laptop can boot with a bootable CD/DVD media?

infj23

I'm sorry. I tried to be clear--I'll try again. Since the new hard drive was installed, the CD/DVD used to work but now it does not.

It worked at least long enough to install XP and Word. I don't know when it stopped after that.

I mentioned Driver Detective because it saying that the CD/DVD drive was unplugged was what made me check it.

The laptop will not reboot off of the XP install disk.

The green light comes on if I put a disk in and I can hear it spin. It is getting power. The drive will not eject by pushing Fn/F10. It will eject by pushing the eject button on the drive's door.

CD/DVD drive does not show in My Computer or Device Manager.

TriggerFinger

I may be asking a repeat question here.. may be you did this already but just to be sure... can you boot from any bootable CD/DVD media? You may need to change boot order in BIOS settings.

infj23

Finally got around to trying to boot from the CD. I hit F2 on boot up with the XP disk in the drive. It booted from the CD fine. Now, the CD drive shows up in the Device Manger and in My Computer. Fixed! But I don't know why it was ever a problem. Thanks for the suggestion.

TriggerFinger

I am glad to know you got it working. As to why it happened, I only suspect a failing drive. If problem happens again, you might want to try another drive just to be sure.