DVD-ROM drive is missing

[antil0ck]

Hello folks,

My problem is that my DVD-ROM drive on my laptop is missing. It is not showing up in Device Manager either. I tried Microsoft's fix by removing the lowpass and highpass filters in the registry. This worked for a few minutes and I could use my DVD-ROM drive but soon I had the same problem again. I formated and reinstalled the OS (running vista). My DVD-ROM drive was working again, only for a few minutes then it was gone again. I downloaded the latest drivers from Acer and again, my drive was working. After I ran some windows updates, my DVD-ROM drive disappeared again. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions to a permanent fix.

Thanks!
Antil0ck

 

[raybay]

If it is more than a year old, or if it has had a lot of use, it may have burned out. Some of the little devices inside do burn out like a bulb, and other things go awry as they age.
We find that once they begin to fail, you are out of luck.
Keep your old one, as new drives may not have all the exterior hardware... and you can save money by buying a basic unit, then adding on the framework, sliders, etc., yourself.
We recommend Teac and Toshiba, followed by Plextor, LG and Samsung. Most of our clients have terrible luck with Sony, HP, HLDS or HL, and the other 87 makers.
We may, perhaps, be alble to help if you give us the brand and model of the laptop, as well as age, operating system, and hardware configuration.

 

[antil0ck]

DVD-ROM issues

One thing that I forgot to mention is that it IS being detected in the BIOS but not in the windows Device manager. The model is a Acer extensa 4620Z

Antil0ck

 

[raybay]

Same answer. If it is older than 12 months, it is wearing out... and if used a great deal, it is already worn out.

 

[LookinAround]

Gee, "We" think it sounds just like a repair shop to simply tell you to throw it out after 12 months. (Makes for easy repair and 100% revenue for sure) (btw "We" is really "me"... but it makes me sound soooo so much more impressive that way, don't you think?)

But it's even more odd a problem when your post keeps indicating it works a short while after a simple software change/fix!

Maybe it's hardware, maybe it's not. Suggest you can try the following: boot your computer into Knoppix (an alternate Operating System) to see if the the DVD player exhibits same behavior with identical h/w but running different Operating System (and drivers) and THEN decide if you should replace it or not or just what need fixing/etc.

You'll need to use a friend's computer to download and burn a Knoppix CD. See [post=766270]How to recover your folders/files when Windows won’t boot[/post]. If your computer won't boot from CD, no worries. Boot you're friends computer into Knoppix and follow the instructions to create a Knoppix bootable flash drive. Then boot your computer from the USB flash drive and see how your DVD hardware behaves

/* EDIT */
btw.. you mentioned you downloaded the latest drivers from Acer. I assume that includes any firmware upgrades? you looked for those too?

 

[antil0ck]

Ok folks, So after re-installing the OS (Vista) a number of times, flashing the BIOS to the newest firmware, and reinstalling the drivers a number of times, I gave up on vista and decided to go with XP pro. Would you know it, it works! It was a pain in the rear end as I had to search for XP drivers on some FTP site in Europe as there are no XP drivers for this laptop in the US. Anyway, all is working and much faster than vista ever did.

Thanks again for all of your inputs.

Antil0ck

 

[LookinAround]

Same answer. If it is older than 12 months, it is wearing out... and if used a great deal, it is already worn out.

So much for an incredibly over simplified yet profitable diagnostic from some people's point-of-view

Moral: Consumer should know and trust the repair shop they take their problem to

 

[raybay]

Thanks for the update... sometimes we never know how things turned out.