Help! USB cdrom not recognized; Win 7; X230

[Piscatore]

I have an almost new Lenovo X230 Laptop running Windows 7, purchased from Lenovo on October 12, 2012. It does not have an integrated cdrom drive, so I purchased an external USB Lenovo Slim Portable DVD Burner, model OA33988, when I purchased the X230 Laptop. The cdrom did not come with its own driver, and the Lenovo website does not list a driver. At first, the cdrom worked by simply plugging it in. Perfect Plug 'n Play operation. But now, the computer fails to recognize or show the cdrom in Windows Explorer, and no CDs or DVDs can be written or read. I am certain the cdrom drive has not been dropped or damaged, and the cable and connections are all good. I don't use the cdrom very often, so I don't really know when it quit working. I'm not aware of installing any new drivers that caused this problem, except a clone-drive that I have since uninstalled, and perhaps an I-Tunes update . I ran the "Troubleshooter" in the Windows 7 Device Manager, and it uninstalled the cdrom and after re-booting, it tried unsuccessfully to re-install the driver for the cdrom, which, of course, did not fix the problem.
Running the Troubleshooter ultimately produces this error message:
"Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)"
I've Googled "cdrom driver Code 19" and tried several suggested fixes with no luck. I downloaded and ran the free AVG registry fix program, as one hit suggested, but that didn't solve the problem either.
I've tried all the fixes shown in the following link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
including downloading and running the "Mr. Fixit" at:
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/cd_dv ... lems/en-us
They did not fix the problem, either, but it led me to here as one of the "other options".
I've also tried restoring to earlier restore points, but that hasn't worked either, and I have now restored to the earliest restore point available. Even then, the cdrom still wasn't recognized, even after running the Troubleshooter then, and attempting to re-install the driver.
I have since run windows updater and re-installed all the critical and suggested updates except Bing. The cdrom is still not recognized.
Without the cdrom, I can't even resort to any recovery discs to repair or reinstall Windows 7.
I suspect that the installation and uninstall of the virtual clone drive corrupted the native Windows 7 cdrom driver, but that's only a guess.
I'm well within my one-year warranty, but Lenovo won't help. It says to "contact my vendor" of the cdrom, which, I pointed out, IS LENOVO, but they claim not to help with "external devices". Very frustrating.
It seems to be a Windows 7 problem, and I'm thinking of trying MS paid support, but thought I'd try this forum first.
Suggestions?

[ZaZ]

That does sound odd they wouldn't help you being both are under warranty from Lenovo. Maybe if you call back and explain that, you'll get a better tech rep.

You might want to plug the drive into another PC/notebook to ensure the drive is operational. Try plugging some other USB devices into your X230 to see if it functions properly. You could boot off a Linux disc too, just to see if it works. My guess would be it's one of those annoying Windows things, but it's not unheard of for a USB card to go bad.

[Piscatore]

Thanks for your post. My HP 8600 All-in-One USB printer works in all the USB ports, so I think my USB card is fine. The USB cdrom works in the USB port of my desktop, so it's working fine, too. I think that pretty much narrows it to the Windows 7 driver for the cdrom.

I'm thinking about using a download upgrade to Win 8, (I qualify for the $15 upgrade) just to fix the problem, but I'm concerned that it may create more problems than it solves.