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trying to get some pics off a CD.  It's making a noise when I stick it in, but computer doesn't seem to be recognising that there's anything in there - any ideas?

try the cd on another computer if you have it?

Try another cd in the drive?

Possibly clean the cd...

sounds like itll be the cd though thats duff.

tried another disk - no joy.

If you go to "my computer" and click on your Dvd/cd drive does it show anything?

it's not listing the drive at all....

...unless it's this one?? 'Combo Socket' (excuse my uselessness!)

Claire, try -

My Computer - View System Information - Hardware tab - Device manager button

Look for cd/dvd drive option.  Is drive shown?, does it have exclamation mark indicating fault?

If you see the drive listed, you can double click if for information about it's status that might help

thanks Keith - I'll give that a go when I get home tonight.

I know it sounds stupid but it could be that autorun isnt on!

Restart it.

Still having trouble with this!  Audio CDs are playing fine.  CD roms (which are fine in another computer) still not being read.  Device manager thinks the drive is working ok.

You could try a lens cleaning disk, like this one http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/126567

Does the cd-rom have a quick release on it so you can get it out without opening the whole laptop up? If so take it out and reseat it, it probably doesn't though as most laptops don't.

When you 1st switch on you can go into the BIOS and find the option to detect IDE drives (can't be specific cauase they are all different). This will check that the BIOS is detecting the CD-ROM ok. It may not be if there is a problem as it could just have the IDE drive settings saved and not be detecting on each boot.

Is the drive a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM or a DVD-writer or CD-writer? How old is the laptop? The drives are cheap enough to replace if it's bust. You could upgrade to DVD if its only CD-ROM or add a writer if its not, choice is yours...  (Age of laptop helps with decision on whether it could have worn out or whether its worth replacing).

cheers Rich.  Most of  your post has whooshed me I'm afraid but I'll get Mr Claw to decipher it for me tomorrow.  Laptop is only about 6 months old - it's a DVD writer

Some of it won't do much to sort it out anyway (like the BIOS stuff) it was just to aid a bit with troubleshooting.

Well, with it being 6 months old means don't take the drive out of the laptop at all. It will still be in warranty and this could void it. You could contact the manufacturer and they can decide if the drive is faulty or not.

You could also try reinstalling/updating the drivers for the device. A mate's laptop suffered a similar problem and I fixed it doing this:

Right-click on the Desktop icon "My Computer".
Select "Properties".
Select the "Hardware" tab.
Click the "Device Manager" button
Expand the tree item "DVD/CD ROM drives"
Select the target DVD/CD ROM drive
Right click and select "Update driver"

Alternatively you could uninstall and reinstall drivers from scratch from this console. In my friend's case, the DVD/CD ROM stopped being recognised so I uninstalled and reinstalled to get his drive working.

Hope that helps.

I had a similar problem first time i istalled i-tunes. Turns out it happened to all Pacard bell lappies and some others.... dunno if this helps. I just coughed up for the call centre phone call, who talked me thru the fix. gl.

You are a star Matt - I'll bet that's what's happened.  Cheers.

Hmm - it gets stranger.  It temporarily fixed itself, and has now gone again.  I went into my computer, and found that the D drive had reappered - hooray!  stuck in a disk and was able to view pics.  'good' i thought, 'i'll go back and sort those out later'.  Several minutes later disk drive starts making a noise - pics can't be viewed.  I took the disk out and decided to go back to look at device manager and maybe have ago at updating drivers.  By the time I get there the DVD drive has disappeared from device manager and D: drive now disappeared from my computer.  Could it be something as simple as a loose connection?

So the drive sometimes doesn't appear in device manager and my computer....

I though you said it was showing up fine  ;whistle;


This might help, someone had a similar problem http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/535586-cd-dvd-drivers-missing-corrupt.html

sorry - that was a technophobe mistake - I was looking at disk drives through device manager rather than DVD drive :(

thanks - will check that link

tried the fix on that link but still no good.  I'm wondering now if it might be something a bit more serious than just a lost/dodgy D drive.  Out of the blue last week I got the blue screen of death.  Restarted the computer and it took an absolute age to reload, but seemed ok ish after that.  Ever since then, every time I've started up my computer I've been prompted to register it (I did that when I bought it).  Other strange thing that happened tonight is that when I tried to use packard bell's support site, I entered the serial number of the machine (several times) and it wasn't recognised. 

That sounds like corruption of the filesystem. Do you have the XP installation CD? If so, reboot from that (you may have to reset the BIOS to boot from DVD/CD) and try using the recovery console to fix any errors. A corrupt filesystem could explain system instability but I've never come across anything like that before myself.

Thanks for all your help guys.  I tried another google search and managed to find a patch that seems to have fixed it all.  Have now managed to get some pics added to facebook :D

Go on Claire, come clean. You forgot to turn it on at the Mains.....

shhhhh