CD-RW/DVD Drive Missing

[TippmannMan]

At some unremarkable time several weeks ago my CD-RW/DVD drive stopped working. It does not show anywhere on my computer anymore, most importantly not in the Device Manager. I have tried the Upper/LowerLimit thing but I believe that was only for drives which had a yellow exclamation next to it in the Device Manager which in my case it doesn't even exist anymore. I am almost certain it is a hardware failure since, it sometimes works if I take the drive out of the bay and put it back in and REALLY press it in there, but the thing that is giving me hope that it might me software related is that after uninstalling a bunch of programs (unfortunately not one at a time but including Nero and DAEMON, a drive emulator program) the CD-RW/DVD drive reappeared and was very stable. Though, since I had uninstalled so much and deleted so many things I figured I would just reformat. So, long story short, it still doesn't work after the complete system format. I guess the only other facts I can note to avoid misdiagnosis are that the problem occured way after installing SP2 and that I have a ThinkPad R40 if there is a history of this happening. Thanks VERY much in advance if you have any new leads or a solution even to this problem. I've taken for granted not having the ability to read CDs...

[Deb Suran]

Tip, please don't cross-post the same message to more than one section. Thanks.

Have you updated the drivers for your ThinkPad since installing SP2? There are a number of new drivers available, and without them we have reports of dodgy performance. Make sure all your drivers and your BIOS are up-to-date. Also make sure the contacts are clean and unobstructed by any dust.

If I remember right, Nero includes its own hardware drivers, that may be a clue.