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General discussion

CD drive missing

Sep 29, 2011 9:53PM PDT

I installed windows 7 yesterday to my new laptop. It is a licensed version, and after installation all other things were working fine. But CD drive is missing. I've been doing this since years and know lot of things about computer hardware. But still after trying all the possible solution, I'm unable to get the result. I'm having Dell inspiron, with 2 GB RAM and 320 GB hard disk. Please suggest a solution for this.

Discussion is locked

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What does the Device Manager say?
Sep 29, 2011 9:57PM PDT

Does it need drivers and if so, did you install those?

Mark

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Re: n laptop
Sep 29, 2011 10:05PM PDT

Just some questions to get the situation more clear.

I've never seen a new Dell laptop that did come without installed OS. So why did you install it yourself? And was the CD-drive working before you installed Windows 7?

From where did you install that Windows 7? From the DVD-drive probably (Windows 7 comes on DVD). Does your laptop have both a CD-drive (invisible now) and a DVD-drive? That's uncommon for a laptop.

Where did that Windows 7 come from? If it was the DVD that came with the laptop it's unlikely it needs a driver from the Driver and Utilities CD/DVD. That would be a catch-22.

Do you see the missing drive in the BIOS setup? Can you boot Linux from it? Does Linux see the drive?


Kees