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Hi, I have a compaq presario 5000 and I recently discovered that I am unable to see either the DVD-rom or the CDR-rw drives any longer. They were working not that long ago. Now, they don't even show up in any hardware lists. I load a cd into the DVD drive and it doesn't do anything. The other drive (CDR-rw) is even in a worse state. It doesn't even open the door when you press the open/close button. I'm not sure what happened to these all of a sudden. Does anyone have any ideas? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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Dani AI

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Brief summary and an action plan that complements 's hardware-isolation suggestion for the Compaq Presario 5000 described by . The quickest way to separate hardware faults from Windows/driver problems is a two-stage test: (A) does the machine firmware enumerate either drive at boot? and (B) if firmware sees a drive but Windows does not, focus on software/driver/filter cleanup.

Step-by-step checklist to try (power off and unplug before touching internals):

  1. Verify power to the drives — reseat or swap the Molex power lead with another known-good connector.
  2. Reseat or replace the ribbon cable and inspect connectors for bent pins; try the drive as the only device on a cable to remove multi-device/jumper variables.
  3. If the tray is stuck on the CDR‑RW, use the manual-eject hole (straightened paperclip) gently to open it; a permanently dead eject motor usually means replacement.
  4. Test each drive on a different machine or via a cheap USB‑to‑IDE adapter to confirm the drive itself is functional.
  5. If comfortable using a multimeter, confirm +5V and +12V on the drive power connector; otherwise swap power leads to rule out PSU connectors.

If the firmware/BIOS detects a drive but Windows still hides it, look at Device Manager (enable viewing of hidden/non-present devices), run "Scan for hardware changes," uninstall any third-party burning suites or drivers you recently added, and consider rolling back to a restore point made before the problem. For a disappearing device that appears in BIOS but not in Windows, driver/filter conflicts are common with older burning software.

Common outcomes and next steps: if nothing is seen in BIOS, the problem is almost always power/cable/controller or the drive itself — replacing the drive or cable is the fastest fix. If BIOS sees the drive and Windows does not, focus on software cleanup or driver removal. Take basic ESD precautions and avoid forcing connectors.

Member Avatar for DMR

Have you made any hardware or software changes around the time the problem started occuring?

Do your BIOS and/or start-up messages show any mention of either drive?

If it's a hardware fault, you might be able to narrow down the culprit by doing the following (pay attention to Master/Slave jumper settings on the drives!):

1. Remove the DVD from the system; see if the CD drive is then at least recognized by the system. If not:

2. Remove the CD and install the DVD by itself.

3. Install each device (one at a time) on the other IDE channel.


Although I've never seen this happen so severely that the devices don't even appear in Device Manager, there is a possibly related software conflict caused by some CD/DVD burning programs (Roxio is one). Read more about it here:

For Win 2K: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q270008

For XP:

In the above articles, mention is made of changes to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ branch of the Registry. Be aware that the changes may also have to be duplicated in the ControlSet001, ControlSet002, etc. branches as well.

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