DVD drive not found on Dell Laptop

Boro · 22-02-2005 4:09pm #1

Strange problem this.

Loaned my laptop to someone a little while ago and when t came back, the dvd/cdrw drive was not being detected by windows any more.

The Details
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 500m (cent 1.4/512mb/30gb/ XP Pro + SP2)
The drive is a modular drive, a LG 4243N, DVD/CD-RW drive.

The drive is picked up (normally) as a usb device when connected. Now when it is inserted, the drive recieves power (can open bay) but is not recognised by windows as having anything plugged in (ie i could be plugging in a brick for all XP cares).

The drive is recognised by the BIOS as the machine can boot from a CD on startup.

I have tested other drives in the drive bay and none are recognised in windows.

Firmware programs, etc, dont find the drive.

The spare battery works fine in that bay.

I have removed and re-installed the USB components in the Device Manager to no effect.

Now to me, it seems that Windows is the sole cause of this lack of recognition. Does anyone know the procedures that windows uses to recognise one of these drives? The fact that the drive seems to physically work, works before windows, and that the bay itself is functional, seems to indicate a driver issue or something?

Dell recommend using the recovery disk, but i would rather not. I will reinstall windows if I have to, but i would prefer a better solution.

Drivers, etc, dont seem to be available.

So anyone have any ideas or musings?

Chalk · 22-02-2005 4:13pm

i think anything usb gets detected as a mass storage class device.
see if you need drivers for that.

does a usb key work?

Boro · 22-02-2005 4:20pm

Yup. All USB devices are picked up bar the devices inserted into the modular bay (apart from the battery - but that uses a different connection anyway). If it wasnt for the fact that the drive works perfectly from outside windows, i would have assumed that the connector was damaged/broken.

There isnt a problem with USB drivers, as it doesnt even detect the device to install drivers for it. Insert the drive and there is no reaction whatsoever from the laptop.

Its a strange one.

Chalk · 22-02-2005 4:21pm

does the drive open and close when you push the button, while in windows?

Boro · 22-02-2005 4:24pm

Boro wrote:

The drive is picked up (normally) as a usb device when connected. Now when it is inserted, the drive recieves power (can open bay) but is not recognised by windows as having anything plugged in (ie i could be plugging in a brick for all XP cares).

Its all in the first post.

Chalk · 22-02-2005 4:32pm

apologies,
well besides it not being a cable problem, everything present and correct,
check
http://www.siliconguide.com/qa/forum/messages/88.shtml
and
http://help.lockergnome.com/index.php?showtopic=31354&st=15

theres a reg fix and some info about cd-burning software registry entries that you can remove.

best of luck,
ill post anything else i can find

petes · 22-02-2005 4:48pm

When the drive is plugged into the modular bay do you have the option in bottom right to safely remove hardware? Is it listed?

Boro · 22-02-2005 5:00pm

Thanks Chalk.
I will check those out when i get back from work. That looks like it could help.

>>Petes
It isnt picked up by windows at all. I believe i mentioned that in my first post that it wasnt.

Boro · 22-02-2005 7:27pm

Well I sorted the problem. I used your fix Chalky and it didnt seem to do anything but then i tried removing and reinstalling the IDE and USB devices in the device manager and it worked. So it probably had something to do with it.

Fixed anyway, so nice one.

RicardoSmith · 22-02-2005 8:23pm

I guess you won't be loaning out the laptop any more...

Boro · 22-02-2005 9:25pm

Damn straight!
Thing came back fairly soaked in ad/spyware too. And the worst thing was they only had it for one bleedin day! I mean how jinxed do you have to be to do that much damage in so short a space of time?

DVD drive not found on Dell Laptop

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