Expert: Donald Fisher - 7/25/2007

Question
I have a dell dimension 4700 desktop computer and one day last week, both the dvd and cd rom drives quit working. In my computer they are listed, but when you try and open to read a disk, they both say you need to insert a disk. both initally light up and start to read the disk, but stop after a few seconds? What can I do to fix this?

Answer
Make sure they are enabled in your BIOS and that their jumpers are properly set.  You may also want to use your device manager and update their drivers via the internet and see if you can get any recent updates.  Is this a recurring problem?  Have you rebooted several times trying both drives to see if they work?  Your IDE cable may have come loose also.  Be sure to check that.