CD Writer vanished!!!

[Simon D.]

Hi all, I have a Hewett Packard PC which has a CD reader/writer installed and all of a sudden it does not recognise any CD's at all! It was working fine last week now put in CD and nothing, just does not see it. Running Windows XP, have tried resore to previous date when it was Ok but it will not let me run a restore. Also it is incredibly slow starting up and doing things, internet is not too bad though. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[Royal Pollen]

cd might have died. they do sometimes. dont cost much to replace

[HWKE]

Reboot into safe mode and try system restore. If that doesn't work, stay in safe mode and uninstall the drive in control panel - Control Panel >System >Hardware >Device Manager >DVD/CDRom drives.
Reboot the computer.
Windows will find the device and re-install it, hopefully correctly.
Please post the results if it doesn't resolve the issue.

[Roughquest]

sorry to digress from Simons thread here, but I also am having a similar problem as my CD ROM will play CDs fine but wont record at all to a blank one! Keep getting 'Insert blank CD-R into drive E and retry' have tried numerous blank Cdrs with no luck, so guess I will need a new driver - by the way not sure how you obtain rebooting in 'safe' mode..help .....and where can i obtain a new driver from ?
TIA
RQ xx

[Simon D.]

My PC is actually a Packard Bell, Celeron 2.93 HGz, Intel R.
Still no luck with drivers, uninstalled as sugested and PC found new drivers but still not reading any CD's, guess it could be the actual CD unit itself. Any good web sites where I could order a new one? Do they all fit nowadays or do I need to specify my machine?
Thanks for everyone's help guys.

Simon.

[HWKE]

To boot into safe mode, press F8 when you boot up and a menu will appear. Safe Mode is one of the options. I find I have to keep pressing F8, because I can never guess the right time.
Are you using the same discs you've always used. Some discs are not compatible with some writers.
I have a laptop which is very selective about what it will recognise,whereas my desktops have no issues.

[HWKE]

Roughquest
What is the make and model of your writer?

[HWKE]

Simon
They will all fit now. You don't need to give any information about your computer.
Ebuyer.com are good, reliable and a decent price.

[Simon D.]

Thanks guys for your valuable comments, looks as if CD writer is shot so will have to replace. Will let you all know how I get on. Have a good weekend all!