BleepingComputer.com: not recognizing cd drive

My dell desktop is not recognizing my cd drive. I downloaded speccy and it even said no optical drive detected. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this problem?

Thank you for your time.

-sharpie

Does the system see the drive at boot (insert a BOOTABLE disk, make sure the cd drive is the first device in the bios boot order, reboot)?

you should be able to hit f12 when the bios is up to get a boot menu without having to mess with the boot order. if it gives you the option in the boot menu to boot to cd then it sees the cd drive in the bios. if you do go into the bios then if you see anything about your cd drive in there then it shouldn't be a problem with the drive but possibly a software issue.

edit: i have used this fix on multiple computers that were having issues with seeing the cd drive. the article says something about vista but i have used it on xp and it worked. it is deleting the upper and lower filters out of the registry.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461

This post has been edited by datastream: 22 January 2011 - 05:11 PM

i used that link and it found the problem with the drive, but it couldnt fix it...

it doesnt even show up when i hit f12 during boot up. everything else does except that.

Allan, on 22 January 2011 - 05:00 PM, said:

if it is not showing up in the boot menu when you hit f12 then it is probably bad. make sure it is all plugged in. you can also hit f2 to go into the bios and make sure that the cd drive is enabled. if it is, try a new drive.

i went to the bios and it doesnt show up. does that mean that mean that the drive is bad?

more than likely. try a or different drive.