[God]

Firstly i didnt know where to post this so move if wrong.


My Disc drive isnt working for some reason. It wont read or Write. It was working then i didnt use it for about 3 weeks then when i went to, it didnt work.

Originally Posted by Device manager

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Its happened before and i did a restore and it worked fine, but i want to know if i can fix it without having to restore. It doesnt even appear in My Computer anymore. Anyone able to help?

My drive is: Slimtype DVDRW SOSW-852S

[Mikk]

Was it a drive that came with an install disk because it looks as if its just the software thats the problem.

[God]

No it was already on the computer. Like i said if i do a full restore it fixes but if i do a partial it doesnt. I dont want to have to do another restore tho.

[Joseph T. Cool]

What version of OS are you running and did you do a Windows Update recently that could have caused this?

[AudioSavior]

Are the disks you using have any color on them? Mine has trouble reading any that have a tint.

[God]

I Dont know what OS is.
I did an update after it stopped working hoping that would fix it.

It wont read any discs at all, program wise or other. The drive doesnt even appear in My Computer anymore.

[AudioSavior]

Open up your machine and unplug it and replug it back in. then to back and do a manual install of the hardware and install drives if needed. See if that does a permanent fix.

[God]

I got that advice the last time it happened but when i told him it was a laptop he said dont go near it unless you know exactaly what your doing.

[Inogenius]

Reboot the machine. When it immediately boots up, it'll say something like "Press ESC to enter Bios/Setup" (Could be F2, Del, F8 ... depending on the machine). Press that button to go into Bios. From that point there will be an area where it reads all the hardware. Go to the area where it says, "Primary drive 0, Primary drive 1, secondary drive 0" ... etc. More than likely, the DVD drive will be listed as the primary drive 0, but you should be able to tell as there will either be a reading as Unknown device or CD/DVD Rom Reader.

If it's reading as unknown device, it sounds like an actual hardware misconfiguration that you can't fix since you don't want to open it up. If it's actually reading it as a CD/DVD Rom Reader, then it's an issue with your operating system. I would recommend going into Windows -> Control Panel -> Add new hardware and then letting Windows run through its search.

If all the options other than your hard drive are listed as OFF, simply option over to the setting "AUTO." This should automatically detect the drive, and Windows will recognize it at start up.

Do you have any USB drives installed at all either?

[Mr. WikipediaSpamBot]

OS=Operating System. Like Windows XP, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.