Disappearing CD drive

Why does my CD drive keep disappearing from My Computer and the Windows
Explorer list? I have to do a power off re-boot to get it back. When it is
gone, the open/close button on the front does not work either. A system
Re-start does not return it, only a power off cycle re-boot. Any ideas?

I am running Win/XP Home/SP2 on a Sony VAIO desktop.

Not familiar with the VAIO,so I have no idea about the age of your
computer. But in the "old days" CD-drives were known to drop off the
radar with Windows 9x because they were not fully ATAPI compliant and
were not readily identified upon startup. For that reason, we had to
introduce DOS-level drivers to the startup process. That solved the
problem. So if it is an old drive, that may be the cause.

Other than that, it may be hardware related. Check the cabling and the
power connection to the drive. If you have an older computer, then it
is conceivable the CD-drive is beginning to fail or the power supply is
not providing a steady 5V stream to the drive to provide connection data
to the operating system.

Rick C. wrote:

Why does my CD drive keep disappearing from My Computer and the Windows
Explorer list? I have to do a power off re-boot to get it back. When it is
gone, the open/close button on the front does not work either. A system
Re-start does not return it, only a power off cycle re-boot. Any ideas?

I am running Win/XP Home/SP2 on a Sony VAIO desktop.

Eric, thanks for the opinion. I might agree, but notice that the "problem"
goes away with a power-off re-boot. This issues a reset to the controller,
but it cannot be a controller problem since my DVD drive shares this same
controller and does not "go away". The VAIO is not brand new, but was
originally delivered with WinXP/Home, so I am sure the drives are fully
ATAPI compliant. I was hoping that others have seen and solved this problem
on Pentium IV PCs.
Rick C.

"Eric Niewoehner" wrote in message
...
Not familiar with the VAIO,so I have no idea about the age of your
computer. But in the "old days" CD-drives were known to drop off the radar
with Windows 9x because they were not fully ATAPI compliant and were not
readily identified upon startup. For that reason, we had to introduce
DOS-level drivers to the startup process. That solved the problem. So if
it is an old drive, that may be the cause.

Other than that, it may be hardware related. Check the cabling and the
power connection to the drive. If you have an older computer, then it is
conceivable the CD-drive is beginning to fail or the power supply is not
providing a steady 5V stream to the drive to provide connection data to
the operating system.

Rick C. wrote:

Why does my CD drive keep disappearing from My Computer and the Windows
Explorer list? I have to do a power off re-boot to get it back. When it
is gone, the open/close button on the front does not work either. A
system Re-start does not return it, only a power off cycle re-boot. Any
ideas?

I am running Win/XP Home/SP2 on a Sony VAIO desktop.