last week my DVD drive failed (or so i thought) i ordered a new one and fitted it today only to find that the same problem still persists.
I have 2 DVD drives, the new one thats a SATA DVD/RW and an old one thats an IDE DVD (kept in to copy from).
When i put disks in the new reader it spins up but windows never sees it, but the same disk in the old drive works fine (Tried a written disk, DVD and Game). So its only when trying the new Drive. Windows has definitely seen it properly (right click -> eject works).
At first i thought it might be a driver issue, new drive is almost identical to the old one apart from being SATA so i removed the driver and got the latest one from windows update, still no joy.
Next thought was is the new drive duff as well (could happen) so i tried booting to it, no problems there.
So the drive is fine its just windows that wont read the disks.
I do have a RAID array in my machine, but i can't see that being a problem.
Best Answer
What other media software do you have installed? That might sound dumb but stuff like iTunes and various DVD software can really do crazy stuff to your computer.
What motherboard do you have? I know my ASUS has special RAID SATA ports that need special configuration to work properly with a standard drive.
Also check here because just about any solution I can think of is listed. Basically, check for UpperFilters, change drive letter, remove iTunes, update the firmware of the drive, update your BIOS.