The case of the disappearing Z61t optical drive!

[sysiphus]

So, long story short...my mother has had a Z61t for a few years now, and loves it. It's been great...the Core2Duo provides enough punch to do all she needs, and it's a great little machine...except...

The optical drive has "disappeared". It still gets power/spins up as normal, but is invisible to Windows. No sign of it in the hardware profile, no broken drivers,etc. I tried updating the BIOS and that fixed the problem...temporarily. It went back into stealth mode after the next reboot. The drive's fine--I've both tested it in my father's X61t dock and used his drive in her machine...same issue.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!

[Harryc]

Try this -
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cd_dvd_drive_problems

[sysiphus]

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, it didn't help. The drive doesn't even show up in BIOS.

[billp117]

Try booting Ubuntu and see if the DVD shows up.

www.ubuntu.com

If it does...then perhaps you need to reinstall Windows. Restore time!!!

[sysiphus]

Try booting Ubuntu and see if the DVD shows up.

http://www.ubuntu.com

If it does...then perhaps you need to reinstall Windows. Restore time!!!

Regrettably, this doesn't help. I can't boot anything off the drive. My uneducated guess is that the cable (?) connecting the drive to the motherboard might be bad or something? I'm a total novice when it comes to the Z-series. I'd love to get this working, because aside from that, the machine is truly mint, and as a C2D-enabled Z61t, it's a great balance of size/power for my mom.

Also, if it helps, the computer seems to take an abnormally long time to transition from initial power on/splash screen to booting Windows (7) off the hard drive. I've set the boot order to prioritize the hard drive, but it doesn't fix the delay.

[RealBlackStuff]

Check if this laptop wants to connect to a network drive. If so, unmap before shutdown.