Ok first of all has anything vhanged, there is a known problem when upgrading XP to vista, where te cdrom.sys rivers arent installed. this is fixable but tedious, if it just simply dissapeared without change, go to device manager:
XP: START> RIGHT click my computer > click "properties" > "Hardware" tab > click the "device manager" button.
VISTA: START> RIGHT click my computer > click "properties" > on the left click "device manager"
under DVD/CD-ROM drvices, you should see your dvd drive, now the field is probably expanded already and it most probably has a yellow exclamation mark next to the device, or it has a large yellow question mark. this means the driver for the vd rive has either failed or is not working properly.
quick fix for this is to simply RIGHT click on the device, click uninstall, confirm, and once un-installed, re-start the machine. apon restart windows should automatically detect the dvd drive as a new device and install it.
if there is simply no device listed under DVD/CD-ROM devices, or the catergory isnt there, windows isnt detecting it at all, which commonly means the dvd drive itself has failed, (the fact it may be powered and opens/closes is irrelevant). but before throwing it away, try changing the IDE/SATA cable. if the uninstall/re-install doesnt work, you may need to re-install it from a winows disk, which is a little tricky. but can be done. let me know if it doesnt work and i will pace you through it.
David
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I have the same problem, but intermittently. The DVD category doesn't even appear in Device Manager when the dvdrw isn't working, so I'm guessing the dvdrw is probably the problem? What's the IDE cable and how do I change it?
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