CD/DVD drive problems I need help

[telecom69]

On my computer I have one internal drive and one external and neither are working,found out by accident when I came to use them ...both have the yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager and updating the drivers has made no difference because they were supposedly the most up to date ...whats puzzling me the most about this is why are both drives like this ? they both have power and trays will open on both ...they will play neither DVD'S or CD'S and most of all I need them working to download photos to disks of family holidays ...praying that someone can help with this ....

[reddiesel]

Originally Posted by telecom69

On my computer I have one internal drive and one external and neither are working,found out by accident when I came to use them ...both have the yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager and updating the drivers has made no difference because they were supposedly the most up to date ...whats puzzling me the most about this is why are both drives like this ? they both have power and trays will open on both ...they will play neither DVD'S or CD'S and most of all I need them working to download photos to disks of family holidays ...praying that someone can help with this ....

You could try system restore to a date back when you had them working, or reinstall them, have you tried troubleshoot ?

[telecom69]

Thanks for the reply, I already tried a system restore and it made no difference they still wouldnt work and I also tried uninstalling them both individually to see if the other would work,but again no joy ...I did go the troubleshooting procedure in Device manager but its very limited and was of no help either ...its very strange why both drives should suddenly go like this out of the blue for no reason ...the only thing I can think of at the moment is has my main internal drive gone faulty and by doing this has stopped the external one from working ....

[Mickha]

When you uninstalled them did you do this in device manager and then re-start Windows to let you Operasting System find them?
As you have given no details of your computer is the internal DVD drive an IDE connection or SATA?
If IDE have you got it running as a separate master or slave to the hard drive?
If IDE try opening your computer and changing the IDE cable round.
Disconnect your external DVD writer for these procedures and concentrate on your internal writer.
What make/model is your external DVD writer?
Is it a dedicated USB device or one fitted in a caddy?

[allanj]

Maybe you could go to manafacturers website and look for a firmware update

[telecom69]

The computer is a Qtech with a 3 Ghz processor Pentium 4 running XP Home with SP2 and is a Sata hard drive and yes I did disconnect the external DVD Writer in case it was conflicting somehow ...I did disconnect them seperately in Device Manager but Windows said in each case it found the drivers but couldnt find the hardware (Im mystified) and the DVD Writer is a dedicated Freecom Classic not in a caddy ....this set up has been running perfectly for over a year now and I just cannot understand why this has happened for no apparent reason ...if I could just get one or the other working I would be happy,at my wits end at the moment, I have also tried the manufacturers websites to look for updated information but with no joy ....something, somehow, is stopping these drives being recognised, but what and why ?

[reddiesel]

When you uninstalled did you reboot pc before reinstalling ? are the drives showing in " my computer " ? the exclamation marks in device manager seems to say they are not installed.
Have you got a good antivirus installed you may have picked up a bug thats corrupted the drives system, if not download search and destroy or any good free one and do a scan.

[Mickha]

You can try checking the DVD writer at boot up by entering the BIOS and changing the boot priority to boot from the DVD drive first, then insert your Windows XP disc and see if you can boot from that.
If you then get the option of installing Windows you can cancel the operation but you will know that the problem is with Windows XP and not your DVD drive.
Try this, and reddiesels suggestion, then please post back with the results and hopefully we can advise further.