DVD RW drive always powered off

[cfds]

I have since a week this T420, bought it second hand and are very happy with it but....
The DVD RW drive is most of the time powered off, to "power" it on again I have to remove it from the computer and reinstall it. On its own not really difficult to do was it not for the "slice" battery blocking the way of the quick release latch of the drive.
No options found in the power manager as acc to google it should have some options here for the optical drive.
Right click to power it on does not work either.
Under the device manager I find the following info; Windows cannot use this hardware device because it has been prepared for "safe removal", but it has not been removed from the computer. (Code 47)
My T420 is running under Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, the power manager is version 6.66.3
Looking on the internet it seems a know problem but so far not any use full info for me and no solution.
I hope somebody can help me out as the optical drive is needed from time to time...

Thanks,

Yves

[RealBlackStuff]

See if this helps:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-a ... 031#M35598

[cfds]

Yep, performed the action described in your link. Lets see if the problem is solved.
I still don't have the option to power down the optical drive in the power manager though...

[cfds]

Well, its not solved - again no DVD drive...

[cfds]

This really starts to piss me off big time...downgraded the power manager to version 3.65, still no option in power manager for the optical drive, even not after a reboot when the DVD drive is up and running!
Some people are suggesting to uninstall the power manager as this will solve the problem...? For me thats not a solution.
This problem is being reported NOT only on the T420 series, its being reported on other models to...

[Easy Wind]

I never done what was described in the link to fix this. But I have always gone in to the Power Manager, click on Advanced button, click on System Settings, and if you see an option called "Automatic Optical Drive Power Off," change that to"disabled." And do that for all power options while you are there.

This option showing at all I remember to be problematic in that sometimes this option does not show for whatever reasons. A restart may get this to be viewable, remove the cd drive and re-insert it may work (then a restart), uninstalled the PM software and re-installing it sometimes works (older version, or perhaps a newer version). In the end this is how you fix this is to toggle this setting in the PM software to disabled.

Now how this changes on its own over time (on our machines at least) I was never able to figure out as we've seen this issue since around the T60 era and still see it from time to time on machines as new at the T430s model.