missing optical drive in lg notebook?

[xqz11d]

hi there,

my cuz has an LG Ls50a notebook with an internal dvd+-rw drive and she's the biggest blonde when it comes to anything to do with technology. anyhow, she's had this laptop for a year and she had heaps of spyware, etc. i didn't bother to scan it, i just formatted by booting from an xp pro boot cd.

setup worked fine, notebook restarted and had the press any key to boot from cd prompt. obviously i ignored that and it went straight to the newly installed xp pro. looked fine til i double-clicked on my computer and only the c: drive is showin up. looked in device manager, no cd drive there at all-not in installed drivers or unknown devices. restarted the pc, went to the bios and no cd drive is visible there either. i tried to force it to look for a cd drive in the secondary device and nothing happens, it goes back to (none).

i just don't get it. lg is crap for specifications and driver downloads. it doesn't have a floppy and the cd was working fine before and during the format. i never opened the notebook at all to say i unplugged something and the drive opens and the light works, so it is gettin power.

straight after i formatted hers, i formatted a friend's three year old acer laptop and everything went smoothly, so its not the actual cd????

i've googled the problem with no luck. there was no LowerFilters or UpperFilters string in the registry to delete, so i added the LowerFilters string-nothing happened. i then deleted it- nothing happened. i removed the whole registry entry-nothing happened. i re-entered it-nothing happened. i've tried cd gone - no change. i connected the laptop to the net, ran windows update-no change. ran a driver scan-no change.

i'm stumped!!!!!

sorry about the two-page essay-but i have no idea what to do?????
cheers!!
--mary from aus.

[roger112]

hi mary,
what i would suggest is that you re install the operating system on the same drive so that all the corrupt files of windows will be erased and then it would overwrite your current os and install the drivers once again so that all the partitions and your cd/dvd drive will appear.try it ,and check back if you have any problems

[Raymond]

It's certainly very weird that the drive was working all the time before formatting and while doing the setup.
After setup, the DVD-RW doesn't show up.
I believe that LG don't require any drivers for the drive to show up. Even if it does, it should prompt you.

If bios doesn't show up the drive, it's most probably dead. Yes, there might be power but having power doesn't mean the drive is working well.

One thing you can try though.
1. Look for LG's notebook latest firmware and update it.
Most important is to get the bios recognizing the drive first.

[xqz11d]

hey guys,

just a quick update:

i emailed lg support the same time i posted here - still no reply!

while waiting i gave it to a couple of "guys" who thought they could do better - they couldn't!!

i went in to a shop that specialises in laptop repair and he suggested i bring it in as it most likely had a virus or needed a new hd....

THEN my cousin's dad was mentioning the problem to a friend who i taught how to use a computer and he said to try taking out the hard drive and plugging it back in. he was too scared to do it cos he's not comfortable with computers yet and guess what:

IT WORKED!!!!

i can't believe i didn't think of it. something SO SIMPLE!!

anyhow, u guys probably thought i had already tried that, but seriously i have got to start thinking simple and not regard every pc problem as so major. i honestly thought the laptop was stuffed!!!!

thanx guys!!