CD/DVD ROM drive not working on my laptop

[Great Cornholio]

The laptop that I use is old, but I don't have the money for a new one plus a lot of my work software works better with this older windows etc. Anyways long story short is its a Compaq Presario M2108US (never took the sticker off so thats what it says) I bought it in Aug of 2005, if that helps you guys out.

Anyways I can put a CD in the CD drive and the light lights up and I hear it spin up, but nothing ever happens. Have tried it with both data cds and DVDs. When I go to device manager it shows that the device is connected and "working properly"...even though obviously its not. Also if I go to "my computer" the CD drive does NOT show up as a drive that I can double click on. Only shows my hard drive.

Thanks for your help

Great Cornholio

 

[summit]

try uninstalling the cd drive in system manager and seeing if that does anything. if all else fails you can get a cheapo external one for 50 off the egg.

 

[Great Cornholio]

I tried that once earlier today, but when I restarted the computer it showed up as being installed again (even though I never had any "new hardware detected" pop ups) I didn't have time to mess with it then, but maybe I'll try it again since I have time to mess around some now.

 

[Great Cornholio]

I tried that again and it hasn't fixed the problem. After looking around more it looks like the CD/DVD drive is not recognized at all on my computer. I do have Daemon tools on my computer and it looks like from what I can tell (which isn't much since I'm not too big into computers anymore) the Dameon virtual CD/DVD drive is the one that is being seen in device manager. Which would probably also make sense as to why the device showed up after the reboot. I looked at compaq.com and it looks like the device listed as the CD/DVD drive had a different name than the one that my computer is seeing. Guess its back to square one for now.

 

[corkyg]

Odds are the optical drive is shot. 5 years is a decent life for one. Get an external or replace it with one from Ebay for your brand and model.

 

[Great Cornholio]

Odds are the optical drive is shot. 5 years is a decent life for one. Get an external or replace it with one from Ebay for your brand and model.

Thanks I was thinking that too, but wasn't sure if that would make it just not show up in my computer.

 

[WT]

You aren't by chance using any virtual drive cloning programs ? I picked up a customer PC that had issues with the drive so I uninstalled Daemon Tools and Virtual Drive and it was fine after that.