CD drives

[DevilMayCry42]

One of my parents' friends PC has got a problem with its CD drive
It just recently started refusing to work. I uninstalled it from the Hardware manager, and let it find the device again. It found it, tried to load the driver and then informed me that it was unable to use the device...I uninstalled it again, and then rebooted the PC, same problem. I went into the BIOS, and it was recognised as the Secondary Master device, but it still wasnt working.
I'm thinking its a kapoot device and she needs a new drive, but rather than making her buy a new drive just like that, I figured I'd ask around first, as I'm not the most experienced...
Any ideas?

If it helps, its a dead old PC running on an AMD Athlon XP, I think...

[306maxi]

Well the only thing I'd do is try a drive that you have and see if it works.

Anyway a drive isn't too expensive.

[DevilMayCry42]

I agree, but it isnt my money, and I dont imagine they'll be very happy if it turns out that that wasnt the problem

[Fraz]

If it really is just a CD-ROM drive, you can buy a replacement for less than a pint of beer... In fact, I think postage is probably going to cost more than the replacement.

[peterb]

Try the suspect CD drive in another machine.

[DevilMayCry42]

Second drive has gone in, pretty much the same problem.

With the old drive, some SCSI/RAID controller was enabled, and that made 3 SCSI CD drives appear. I disabled that, had the new drive go in, and.....it finds the drive, loads the driver and then says 'unable to use the device'...

I've taken the other drive back home with me, and I'm gonna test it in my machine, but does anyone else have better ideas? I'm sorta leaning to a busted cable or IDE port on the mobo, but I really am not sure.

[DevilMayCry42]

Ok, I tested the drive in my machine, works fine, installed and recognised in my PC. Tested it by loading Trackmania United off the disc, worked perfectly.

That leaves the cable or the mobo. I'm going to try a new cable in her machine, but it seems strange that the cable would suddenly stop working. If it isnt the cable, then its the port, which seems even wierder

[DevilMayCry42]

Does anyone have any ideas other than mine of it being the cable or the port?

[DevilMayCry42]

Tried the new cable, stil the same problem. All I can think of now is that its the port on the mobo...

[Andy3536]

Could you fit another CD drive with a different connecter? i.e. Ide - Sata or Sata - ide ???

[DevilMayCry42]

[killie99]

could your problem be this: You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: "error code 31"