dvd drive gone

[bagggi]

am running windows xp pro. on gateway laptop. one fine day i switched it on and cd rw / dvd r drive was no more there. it was just gone, vanished.

this are some of the things that i did-
1) checked the devic manager in control panel. the cd drive was not present.
2) used nero > drive speed check, and it said no drive present.
3) i removed all the programs that i had installed last couple of days. restarted the comp-still no drive.
4) ran the adware and the anti virus. restarted again- still no drive.
5) used the registry cleaner. restarted- no drive
6) defraged and ran the scan disk- no drive
7) ran the windows restore to earlier date. it went to that date but still no drive
8) contacted gateway support and told them. according to them- reformat.

the problem lies is, as i cant read dvds anymore,i cant restore the drivers. for the same reason i cant run the gateway restore or xp restore.

somewhere during running of above programs, i came across some message saying that no drivers present for the cd drive.

have run out of ideas. what else can i do...

[nihil]

Hi bagggi,

South Shields? ................isn't that a Geordie with his head kicked in?

Have you run all your tests in safe mode ? if so, then I guess the drive has died. I hope you are still under warranty, if not that is just bad luck.

You might try reformatting..............but that is a tosser's solution that probably won't work.................and if it DOES, Gateway should be banned from selling computers in Europe?

Maybe THEY know something about Gateway kit that WE do not.

Good luck mate

[bagggi]

nihil,

hey, actually you are right, they should be banned in europe. had bought it from america. it was a good gamming machine. i mean is, still is, minus the dvd drive.
the thing is still under warrenty, but i still have to send it across bloody atlantic to some one they can collect it from. some world-wide warrenty.

as for your reply, no i havent run the tests in the safe mode. will do it now. if it works or not, will post a reply here.

cheers

[bagggi]

nope. ran all the tests in safe mode.
no change- no drive.

checked the drive. the drive running light flashs upon start up. does it still means that its dead.

[Relyt]

Well sometimes the drivers get corrupted. Since you can't use the DVD to re-install, can you download them from the mfg?

cheers

[bagggi]

mfg?
download?

sorry,

am still connected to the net. had gone to gateway website, to downloads and they seem to have everything except for disk drive drivers.

[foxyloxley]

mfg?
download?

go to the manufacturers website
download the drivers direct from there ..........

[.:front2back:.]

Just a stupid question.

Have you bumped or dropped the laptop recently? If you have then you could of done something to it..

f2b

[bagggi]

no, i didnt drop it. i carry it around in a padded swiss army back pack, made for laptops.

just yesterday i loaded programs

1) VersionTracker pro: it scans the comp and lets you know what is out of date. know what it came up with the dvd driver. but according to it, its still upto date.

2)driver detective: does the same thing as above. didnt come up with anything.

3)driver majic: same as above. wants me to register and pay up first.

then suddenly in the morning i switched this thing on and there it was. message came up saying that "found new hardware" and the drive was present in My Computer. then it asked for restarting. after restarting, the drive was gone again.

i feel that the drive is ok. on starting the light blinks and it rotates like its supposed to do. then once all has started and running, it dissappears. something is conflicting with it.
am hellbent in finding it and getting my drive back.

i got all the above programs from the manufacturers website "www.tsst.com"

baggi

[nihil]

Hmmm,

I suppose we had better make sure that the machine is "clean" first? This kind of problem can happen with "scumware" loading itself.

http://www.ewido.net/en/
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

The last one is "Spybot Search & Destroy"

Please download those and install them. Then update them and reboot into safe mode and run them. Whilst you are in safe mode, run your antivirus as well (update it first).

Let the software kill any crap that it finds.

Then reboot and let me know what happens.