Im trying to play a CD on my comp. but the computer wont recognize that theres a CD in the drive plus it wont recognize that there is even a CD Drive to begin with.
any suggestions as to how i fix this?

U have to first install the drive: start-control panel- add new hardware

then if it doesnt read the disc, the disc shud have some sort of reading software installed that u needa install

thats not quite the problem, it will randomly recognize and not recognize the drive ive tried trying other CD's and thats not the problem either.

In case you have tried above methods, try this article Missing CD ROM Drive

I had similar happened to one of my computers and found the patch to work very well. According to MS site it might've happened when CD ROM burning software was uninstalled and caused possible registry error while uninstalling.

Yeh, I did actualy have the same problem with my computer when I got it back from my computer guy last week, it was a new 1 so... i did not really get it back, but yes, anyways, I did what I suggested above that that worked.

This post has been edited by lemonwonder: Aug 13 2006, 06:12 AM

The first thing you should check is whether actually power is ON on your hard disk. As soon as you insert any CDs the light in front of the CD ROM will probably blink, this shows that the ROM is trying to read the CD you have just inserted. If this happens and still it doesn't recognize you may open your CPU(the cabinet) and see if any cable from the motherboard goes actually to CD ROM. Power may be on but if the cable that communicates with the mother is detached it will not work. If you are not comfortable opening the cabinet you'd better call some technicians who could help you fix this. Also, we would like to know whether it was working earlier or this is the first time you are trying to use.