CD drive not working...

[prviper720]

hey guys, i have a question about my CD drive. one time i was listening to an audio CD and then when i woke up the next morning, it had stopped playing. so i opened media player and it had the little orange exclamation point next to all the songs. so i figured that maybe something was wrong with the CD. so i put in a diff CD, but then nothing happened. so i went into my computer to see if the comp even recognized that there was a CD in. but there was nothing, it didnt recognize the CD. i tried with several diff types of CD's, and still nothing. does anyone know what could be wrong and what i can do to fix it? (i also tried looking for an updated driver, but there was none). if have any ideas please let me know. thanks

[Proximus]

Hhmm, that's strange one minute working and the next it doesn't work anymore. Try to open the chassi and make sure both the IDE and power cable are properly connected.

[prviper720]

hmm, to "open the chassis" do i just take the cover off the comp then get to the cables from there?

[Spiff]

Yea just check that, open up the side and check the cables coming from the drive. The Flat cable is the IDE cable, it carries all the data. The coloured one is the power cable which leads from your power supply unit. Check theyre both in as far as they can go.

On the other hand, how old is your CD drive? They do have a maximum life span, not sure what it is but im pretty sure from the day you buy one, continual use will eventualy kill the laser that reads the CD

[ohell11000]

myns been doing something similar recently
some cds that i have copied to my computor recently have come out a bit fuzzy and it also does not read game cds easily
i don't know why but i'll check my cables as well

[prviper720]

ah, well the lifespan thing might be an issue, i originally got my computer when i was in 7th grade, 3 years ago. but last year i completely redid everything, and the only part from the original computer was the CD drive. everything else is new. that might be the problem. thanks for letting me know

[mike^_^]

have you tried going into device manager?

control panel > system > hardware > device manager

open the drop down menu for your drives , and see if there are any exclamation points.

if there are, right click on it, click uninstall, then reboot and check again

happened to me one time, that fixed it