For some odd reason both of my cd drives quit working on me a while back. It isn't the controller on the motherboard, because I can see both drives in BIOS. I tried uninstalling them from the device list and then rebooting, and while windows did "reinstall" them, I still can't access them. They are there in 'my computer', and when I insert a disk the icon will change so I know that windows recognizes a disc being present, but when I try to access the drive it says "Please insert a disc into drive x". Any ideas? The firmware for both drives is up to date, and I've tried multiple discs in different drives.

2 drives,
first drive is a JLMS DVD-ROM (XJ-HD16)
second drive is a Sony CD-RW (CRX216E)

Both of which suddenly stopped working at the same time (and it isn't a motherboard issue). Ponder on that, and let me know what you think.

 

have you tried a disk cleaning disk on them. windows can see the first part of the drive to change the icon. but if the drive head is dirty doesn't matter how many disks you shove into it.

also the controller could be going out. not completely gone. but coulf be on it way out.

but after you try the cleaner. i would try borrowing a cd rom drive off a friend or if you have a spare one try and hook it up. if it doesn't work then you know it is the controller. if it works and you have cleaned both drives. then i would say you drives are both going south. it isn't to far fetch they you can have two drives going out at the same time.

but my honest guess is you drives picked up lint on the optical head.

 

I'll try cleaning it, as the case is filthy.

I booted it with an old windows 98 disk and both drives worked fine, I really think it's just a windows problem.

 

have you tried different ribbon cables? i have had hard drives in the past stop working (thinking it was a dead hard drive at first), turns out swapping the ribbon cable fixed it...