My CD/DVD drive and USB ports don't work no more!

[Newbie12]

Hi,
Just recently, my CD/DVD drive stopped working and also with the USB ports! Did I do something wrong? Any ideas on how to get these two things working again?

thanks in advance

 

[Nenad]

Err, can you give a bit more information?

Is this a laptop or a stationary computer?
Did they die at the same time?
What were you doing/when did you notice they died?

My first guess would be that the windows has bugged up. Second guess would be hardware failure (very easy to check, go into bios and go to the boot sector, if there's nothing there besides the hard drive then the hardware is at fault).

Also have you installed/uninstalled any virtual disks, they may cause problems.

If it's a laptop it could also be due to the battery dying and/or the power settings stopping these devices.

 

[Newbie12]

Yes, is a laptop...

I think they died at the same time, but I didn't use both USB port and CD/DVD drive during the dying... I think it died after I shut down my laptop about a few weeks ago.
I have tried to get these things work but to no avail, even with the help of my friend! He said the things are dead, I don't think so... What was I doing at the time it died? Well, I was sure after I was playing some game and then got bored and shut it off. Then a couple of days later, I turn it on so I could do my school work on from my USB thumb drive and windows did not dectect it! The CD/DVD drive icon on 'My Computer' is missing too!
I don't think it's a hardware failure. I have got my friend to reinstall windows 3 times to get rid of this problem,:thup: yes, this problem has already been discovered by me, and this is not the first but rather the 4th time now. I also don't think it's a hardware failure because my USB ports work perfectly fine with my friends USB external HDD but not with my thumb drive.

Yes, I have a virtual drive and the program I'm using for it is Game Drive. That program has worked ever since I got, on every PC I have so far.

If the battery is dying, than the laptop (if powered from battery) will not turn on, then. And if it's the power settings, what do I do to re-enable these devices?

 

[Slapshot136]

if you go to "Device Manager", do any "unidentified" items show up? this is usually where things with no driver will be found

alternatively there could be some settings in the bios, but those shouldn't have been changed at all from what you said, so I wouldn't recommend messing with them yet

it does not sound like the battery at all to me, but you could check with no battery and just off of the power cable to be sure

 

[Newbie12]

Okay, In the device manager there was a yellow question mark next to my CD/DVD drive and the virtual drive created by Game Drive. There was no 'unindentified' items, just a couple with the 'yellow coloured question marks'.

 

[Nenad]

Well we established it's not a hardware failure, can you check what's wrong with the device (double click on it). If the drivers are wrong reinstall them ^^

 

[Newbie12]

Okay, In the device manager there was a yellow question mark next to my CD/DVD drive and the virtual drive created by Game Drive. There was no 'unindentified' items, just a couple with the 'yellow coloured question marks'.

Actually, it changed to a black exclamation mark with a yellow coloured circle around it...sorry...

@Nenad
Okay, in the properties menu of it, it said that windows successfully loaded the drivers for it but could find the Hardware device for it.

I have also another problem that may be caused by this as well: Okay, there was one time I could use the USB port for thumb drive and file transfer and reading, even writing was working as it should be. then later when I use it again, when it was shutdown, it didn't work. And sometime it takes forever just to shutdown my laptop! You know how your PC just hangs, even if you press the shutdown button? Yeah, I waited all night last night and didn't even shut down. It took like 10 minutes just to get to the blue screen that says windows is shutting down and then I waited another 2 hrs for it to shutdown. I was running it on battery. Eventually, I thought to my self, might as well shut it down, forcefully then let the battery go flat...So I did. This laptop is a strange one I've had so far, ever since my friend downgraded it from VISTA to XP...I was wandering what did my friend do to it before this happen, hmmm.....
Oh, and I don't have my friends EHDD drive no more, so now I can't tell if it only works for EHDD and not for my USB thumb drives. But it did work during this time...So atleast I know it's not only that my friend's EHDD works but also my thumb drive as well, well once only so far...

Hey, think I might know what would of caused this, I think it was the time I installed that AnyDVD and said that error and AnyDVD couldn't start up! Or it could be a dodgy version of XP, my friend has...This didn't happen for VISTA, when I still had it. To be honest, I wasn't really there when I had my friend install and reinstall XP, so I wouldn't have a slightest idea of what he did to my laptop when it was working perfectly fine with VISTA.

 

[Newbie12]

Help! Anyone?

Hello, I really need this to be solved! I don't want to be picky but I don't really want to bother my friend again as I have, already, many times!
Is there a way?

 

[esb]

Is there a way?

Bother your friend.

 

[Nenad]

Try uninstalling the hardware by right clicking on it in the device manager and select uninstall. Then, select after you've done all of that, click on the icon to search for new plug and play devices (search for new hardware) at the device manager and let it do it's job. If you still have this problem, then i'm not sure what would help besides reinstalling windows. Make sure to put vista on, maybe the drivers from you're motherboard are not that happy with the XP.

 

[Newbie12]

Nope, no go. It froze or rather got stuck from while loading when I tried to unistall the hardware device...So I guess I'll have to have my laptop be reinstallation of windows...I'll get a techy to do this. I think I might know why my friend wanted to downgrade from VISTA to XP: VISTA took so much resources that it loaded slower than the current XP windows installed. That's why. Actually, to be honest, I like XP over VISTA because from previous experience with my laptop that had VISTA on. So, I'll get that guy to reinstall windows XP. Oh and those XP drivers was downloaded from the laptop's brand site and should be 100% compatible.

 

[Newbie12]

Okay, I finally got this fiixed!

Well, thank guys for your contribution. You really made me smiling during all of this. :thup: :shades: