Disc drives not working.

[sparkyminer]

Both my DVD and CD-RW drives are not working, the trays are in the out position, when I close them, the cursor flashes with a little disc icon and then ejects the drawer again, regardless of wether there is a disc in the tray or not. I've tried re-installing them, no joy. The device manager says they're working properly, well Mr Device Manager, they're bloody well not. Any help will be gratefully recieved, this wasn't urgent until yesterday when I down loaded new drivers for my broadband modem, which then proceeded to uninstall the modem, couldn't reload the drivers from the system disk, couldn't reload from the internet, carried out system restore, but that wouldn't let my AV auto protect work, so I've got to reload the AV software PDQ but can't without a disc drive.
Your help would be warmly appreciated. :)

[Win2Win]

You've been digging a deeper hole to fix all that!!

Boot up in Safe Mode and see what happens first with the drives, and uninstall them from the device manager, and reboot, they will reinstall then.....

[GlosRFC]

Device Manager is right - your drives are working which is why the light is flashing and they're opening. What I suspect has happened is that, during the course of installing/reinstalling these various drivers, the OS has got confused and is now automatically looking for the software to be installed from your CD or DVD. In its helpful way, it's opening the drives to allow you to insert the appropriate disk but not actually telling you which disk to insert!

What you can try before you go about reinstalling the drives themselves is to just open up My Computer, then plonk any old disk into the primary (presumably D:) optical drive, right-click the icon for that drive, and select the Explore option. Windows will stumble around trying to read the disk but if it doesn't work, don't worry, just keep doing it half a dozen or so times. This often has the effect of breaking Windows out of the phantom Insert Disk loop that it's in and it will go back to recognising/reading your drives again.

If that fails, then try Keith's suggestion.

[Win2Win]

Windows doesn't automatically open the drive for you when it wants something, it just puts a message on the screen. It's got it's 1's & 0's mixed up somewhere.

[sparkyminer]

Tried your suggestion Glos, no joy but thanks for the suggestion, will try Keith's later when racing completed.

[sparkyminer]

Tried your suggestion Keith, no joy either, it uninstalled them, detected them, reinstalled them and every thing is the same. The trays are stuck out, they wont close, no lights showing on any drive, I think it's a wiring problem, both drives failing at the same time, I'm going plumbing, see y'all later.

[Win2Win]

Change the IDE cables around that attach them at the back, both drives should be on SEPERATE cables, and should also not be on the same cable as hard drives, as they slow them down (but they don't mention this in the small print which is why I always build my own so).

Take the drives out and try them on another system, just to verify it isn't them that is the problem.

Run AV in case a Trojan is passing code to open them.

If that fails, use them as cup stands!!

[Workshy]

Both my CDRW & DVD drives are on the same cable, set to master & slave, never had issues so I doubt thats a problem? :geek But what do I know! :laugh

[Win2Win]

On the same cable if you copy from one to the other, it can drop data, due to the way the referencing works to and from the drives.

[sparkyminer]

I'm back. The disc drives aren't :rolleyes: :anger ::swear . I've tried all the above and it's still b*lloxed, I think the DVD has gone to the computer in the sky :dead , won't open or shut now. My wiring theory was exactly the reason you thought it wouldn't work Workshy, both drives stopped at the same time so I thought it would be a common problem. Looks like a trip to network chappie at work, he's a right miserable bas**rd, never gives anyone any help unless they pay him but I know his daughter, who happens to be a right tart, shag owt or anyone, and he's frightened to death I'll say summat at work, I never would but he don't know that. :D

[Win2Win]

Try it only one wired up each boot, as it may just be the one causing a short!

[sparkyminer]

Try it only one wired up each boot, as it may just be the one causing a short!
Worth a try, I'll have a go tomorrow. :yikes:

[sparkyminer]

Try it only one wired up each boot, as it may just be the one causing a short!
Tried that, still not working, getting annoying now. :anger ;fire

[Win2Win]

Swap over the IDE cables between disks & CD to see if it is a problem with that.

It is highly unlikely to be a m/b problem.

Have you run AV & Spybot/Adaware yet? It may be a virus.

[plater]

Apart from what Keith and GlosRFC have stated I have nothing to add, but some info you may find at http://www.nibbleguru.com/probs/136/20 from people with similar problems to yours.Plater