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DVD Drive not recognized?

16 years ago

Good morning everyone,

I have been having a problem with my computer. I built it myself last year and it worked beautifully for a while. A few months ago, it completely crashed and Windows wouldn't load. It turns out I had a corrupted RAM module, so that was fixed and Windows was reinstalled. After that, the DVD drive is no longer recognized in Windows.

Under My Computer, I only see my C: and A: drives. I replaced my DVD drive to see if that was the problem but the new one also isn't recognized. I have power to it - it opens and lights up and the DVD's attempt to play but nothing happens. I checked in BIOS and the drive is recognized as the Primary Slave. I fiddled around a bit and didn't see any way to change that. Both the Master and Slave are set on Auto. I also tried downloading the newest drivers and that didn't help.

I also did a "FixCD" fix using Notepad but that didn't help.

Does anyone have any ideas? Should I try to reinstall Windows again?

Thanks!

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Comments (2)

Chi
Original Author
16 years ago
I should add that in BIOS, this drive is the only thing recognized under CDROM drives, and it's set as Primary IDE Slave. There is no Primary IDE Master. I also don't have a secondary slave or master. My hard drive is under SATA master. Thanks.
owbist
16 years ago
I would check the ribbon cable myself. First I would ensure the current cable is seated nicely and the coloured strip is on the pin 1 side. If that does not resolve it try a different ribbon cable. Did you use the new one that came with the second DVD player? The newer ones are 80 wire rather than the older 40 wire cable.

Where do you have the jumper set to on the DVD - Master, Slave or Cable select?
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Mike, I have an Inspiron 1545 - is this what you mean? Let me know if you need more info. I would still like to download the driver for my laptop, but how do I do that? I do consider myself "adventerous", but not when it comes to computers, haha. owbist: thanks so much for the info, but like I told Mike, I don't feel comfortable when working on the hardware in computers. This morning I'm NOT able to burn a CD, but right before that I was able to play a movie. I don't know what is going on. Now I'm sure I'm not able to watch a movie either. So, how do I "download" this driver file. I see it, and it is actually in my download folder, but when I try to download it, it says there are no files to download. When it says download, it says "save file", not RUN, like I want it too. Any suggestions on this? Thanks! I appreciate all the advice.
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