I am not sure where this would go, because I did not find a CD/DVD drive section.

I have a laptop (Toshiba) and my DVD drive stopped working. I believe it stopped working a while back, when my windows core files were dumped, and when I used the system recovery it did not recover the driver for the DVD drive. I do not know the make or the model of the DVD drive, though the make is most likely Toshiba. Anyway I am wondering if a missing driver could be the problem, or if it is something else. I have already tried rebooting the machine and cleaning the lens with some rubbing alcohol, but none of those worked. Does anyone have any other solutions, or a place where I can download the driver for the DVD drive?

Thanks

You should be able to find the driver on the Toshiba web site, probably under "Support" for the model of laptop you have.

what version of windows are you using .
it should work without a driver from Toshiba ,windows would use generic driver ,go to device manager and see if its listed, maybe if its listed it has a red x or !,if so right click on and uninstall it ,then reboot computer windows should reinstall driver ,give it a try see what happens ,post back results

It would show a yellow sign too.

I went to the device manager and then to DVD/CD-ROM drives and I have 3 items under it.

CTCRY 4DQFCXEJC92V SCSI CdRom Device - no idea
MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM0000 - Virtual CD Drive
SanDiskCruzer USB Device - My U3 usb drive

I tried updating the driver for the first one, but it was up to date. I have no idea what the first one is. Could it be the DVD drive (if so why does it say CD). Also There are no exclamation marks or red or yellow circles anywhere.

I am using Vista Home Premium 64bit

CTCRY 4DQFCXEJC92V SCSI CdRom Device - no idea

delete it, and reboot to see if it changes to correct name

I deleted it and restarted my computer, then it came back with the same name. I just noticed that when I put in a cd and it tries to read it the light on the tray flashed orange (I am not sure what color it is supposed to flash). It still doesn't work though.

How about starting up in safe mode and see whether DVD could be read.

The "CTCRY 4DQFCXEJC92V SCSI CdRom Device" is your physical drive - no doubt about that.

Since you haven't posted info on which laptop model you have, I can't know what chip set or controllers is on your board, but any hdd/dvd controllers are connected through the "south-bridge" of the chip-set, so you should start with installing drivers for that.
Some laptops have integrated graphics in the southbridge also, so the original graphics driver may contain additional drivers for the chipset too.

So - go to the link posted -> find your model, and go to drivers download.
get all drivers on the page, and start installing them (remember to restart in between)
Start with low level drivers (chipset, graphics, and so on), and don't worry about if you have newer drivers installed already - windows will use the best of them anyway in most cases.
:)

I posted all of my info on another forum as well, but I still have no solution.
Here

I posted all of my info on another forum as well, but I still have no solution.
Here

try the windowsfix link posted on other site i was going to suggest it next post.and my opinion if that don't work ,then the drive is busted

I don't believe it is busted. It tries to read the cd I can hear it. I believe it is just the software. Like I said it was fine before the file dump. I tried it and it said it was fixed, but it wasn't now I am trying a couple of potions that it suggested when it took me to the website.

ok, then i guess its time to reinstall the motherboard chipset drivers from the makers website as suggested on other site

ok, then i guess its time to reinstall the motherboard chipset drivers from the makers website as suggested on other site

I factory reset my computer (due to some other errors), and now the drive is not showing up.

Can you restore your data and do what caperjack suggested?

No I cannot restore my data.

So can you even start up and log in?

I can now that I reinstalled my vista.

Ok. here is what happened. My computer started to dump core files (again). This time I did what I did last time and shut off the computer. I started it up again and then it game me the same error as it did last time; "Windows could not start up because windows files are missing or corrupted" or something like that. I hit fix this problem. Then it started fixing the problem. However it says that it failed. I tried doing a system restore from the advanced options menu, but that also failed. Before I restarted I tried copying over some files that would have been nice to keep, but weren't necessary, and then hit the option that factory resets it. It took about an hour, but it reset all of the files like when I first got it. It deleted all of my data and so on. Since then the drive is not showing up. It could be a loose wire or something, but I don't really want to check, because my DVD drive is not easily accessible. I would have to remove the while back before I could access it. If there was a separate lid for it I would check that, but maybe I will check the DVD drive some time later.

My computer started to dump core files (again).

please explain this ,not sure why the computer would just start deleting its file

I have no idea why it did that. I came home plugged in an external DVD drive so I could use the DVD drive and then it just started dumping files.

Can you recovered the dumped files. And try doing a scan with malware bytes too to make sure malware is not the one responsible for the dumping of files. Can your external DVD drive work? Can it read movie and play them?

i have never experienced a computer delete file without me telling it to do so, in my 15 yrs of owning a computer and 12 yrs of fixing and building them for others

i have never experienced a computer delete file without me telling it to do so, in my 15 yrs of owning a computer and 12 yrs of fixing and building them for others

Trojan!;) Or the file might not be deleted but hide from view by a malware.

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