DVD drive stopped working after installing re-installing Windows 7

[dave2849]

My Asus DVD drive was working perfectly fine for 3 years and recently has stopped functioning after formatting my HDD and doing a clean install of Windows 7. Windows 7 installed fine with the disc that I had but shortly after installing it, my DVD drive gradually stopped functioning. First I got a bunch of errors when I tried to burn multiple data DVDs. Then the drive started having trouble just reading DVDs. Shortly after that, when I would put a disc in the drive, the drive would fail to load the disc and keep making the same noise repeatedly. The noise sounded like it was trying load the disc. Finally, the drive just stopped opening.

I have looked into solutions for this and tried the solution where you delete the upper and lower filters for the drive in the registry but there were no upper or lower filters in the registry for my DVD drive to delete. I also tried the Microsoft Hotfix for DVD drives and that didn't work. I have tried using a different SATA port on the motherboard and that didn't help and even when I disconnect the SATA cable and have the drive only connected to the PSU, it still malfunctions. I have also tried deleting and disabling/enabling the DVD drive from Device Manager and that didn't work.

I will note that I had lost my copy of Windows 7 that I had always used to install it on my computer so I had to use someone's OEM Windows 7 disc to re-install windows but I still used my own Windows 7 product key that I got off of my PC. The copy of Windows 7 that I used to have was the retail upgrade version and I'm wondering maybe this is an issue with using an OEM install disc?

I don't know what else to do. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[C1]

Ya, had a couple opticals go bad like that. Just go to Fry's Electronics & for $23 buy another Asus SATA CD/DvD RW. If you want to go cheaper then for $5 your local eWaste will have a bushel of opticals to choose from.

 

[nerp]

The drive probably happened to die. That long install might have been the event to push it over the edge. If anything, be glad that the OS got installed before it died AND a replacement can be had for under $20 these days.

 

[JimKiler]

What drive letter is your optical drive? After Win 7 was released i put my optical drives as A and B but i could not get them to work half the time. I can only assume legacy floppy drive code was to blame because as soon as I moved them to a new drive letter all my issues disappeared.

 

[tcsenter]

Is it listed in Device Manager? Also if BIOS sees it in Setup.