Rank: Wiz
Rating: 84%, 51 votes
You can right-click on the drive and go to properties, and from there you can update the drivers or see the message about what is wrong with the device. However, these messages are totally vague and inaccurate, and even if it says the device is broken or something it's probably a software issue. If the cd-rom drives mount properly and you can see them in my computer and use them, it might be better to just let it be, lest you anger the gods of phantom software problems.
Anyway, the easiest thing to do is right-click on the cd-rom drive and remove or delete it. This sounds scary but a few later, or after a restart at most, your computer will realize it has the cd-rom drive hooked up to it, and automatically install it as a cd drive and might work. There's a chance that it's such an exotic cd drive you have there that windows can't find the drivers for it, but that rarely happens with something like a cd drive. If you think you need drivers for it, go to the manufacturer's website of the cd rom, or look in the properties and see the model name and google drivers for that. If your computer was bought already built (like an hp, compaq, dell) then you can probably find drivers on their website. If you computer was custom built you should try the site of the motherboard manufacturer.
It's possible that this could be caused by a registry problem. Sometimes when you install programs (itunes is notorious for this) they will mess up something on the computer by trying to make it compatible with them. So if your cd drives don't show up in my computer, you can download a file called cdgone.reg from the internet. I've uploaded the file to rapidshare, and you can download it from this
link. I'll tell you myself that opening a random registry file you downloaded from some website is more risky than an unprotected romp with a lady of the evening, I give my word that file is safe, can you really trust me? Get yourself some virus protection, and there are some free utilities that will fix problems like your cd drive problem automatically.