My laptop is awesome but....

So my laptop kicks ass. I intended to buy a POS that ran barely enough to store tuning software, and I got built in wireless, good battery life, basically a new generation laptop. And I've been using it ever since I got it. Its an HP dv2700 with Vista home on it.

But I go to install halflife2 package and I put it in my DVD drive.....and nothing happens. No auto run, and so I got to "computer" to open the drive manually.....and nothing is there. Just my "2" hard drives thats just one HDD with a packup partition as HP sets it up.

So WTF I tried re installing the "light scribe" Software and my drive doesn't re appear. And I'm not good with advance software problems. Hardware on desktops, sure, software, eh not so much and I know theres lots of room to F things up.

So GRM any ideas?

~Alex

Take the drive out and then push it back it to try to reseat it. Failing that - look on HP's website to see if they have a one-off driver for it and try to install it.

Sounds like the drivers for the optical drive are either old, and out of date- or non existent altogether. I have had the same problem with my Asus laptop for a while now, kind of a PITA. What i'd do is stick a blank disk in there and see if it reads the media at all. If it does, it could be the HL2 disc, though not as likely. If it doesn't, go to HP''s website, find your laptop, find out what optical it has in it, and download the latest drivers.

Well the drive doesn't separate from the laptop its self. So hopefully the internal connection is good.

A engine hoist has fallen on me/the laptop when I was in the garage once...but it hit the top left corner of the screen and then the floor, but Ive used the DVD/CD drive since then.

I'll go check HPs site, I should have done that first, but I'm geeking out on suspension design....

~Alex

It's probably the usual upperfilters / lowerfilters bug.

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cd_dvd_drive_problems

So no dvd/cd section is even listed in device managers and Mcarp's link didn't work. FML I would have an issue no one else has.

~Alex

I'm in regedit I guess doing what that link would do only manually. It tells me to go into regedit and go under the cd/dvd section and delete the Upper/Lower filters and exit.

Cool- except they are already not there. And windows help guide says this fix wont work and I have to try something else. perfect!....

~Alex

Could the drive its self be dead?

Rustspecs13 wrote: Well the drive doesn't separate from the laptop its self. So hopefully the internal connection is good.

It may not come out easily, but there is a way to remove it. I had a laptop with a similar issue, I had to remove a screw from the bottom to remove it and re-seat the connections.

Look on page 73 of the Service Manual.

May or may not fix it, but worth a shot.

silly question, sure it's a dvd drive?

Try throwing in an audio cd for giggles to see if it does anything.

Also, sure the HL2 disc is good?

I've tried a few CDs/DVD's and none work. Yes its a DVD drive, its an awesome all in one that can burn CDs or DVD's too.

The problem is the drive just doesn't exist any where at all. any where. No stupid online fix has worked either

Maybe i'll reformat it or some E36 M3. I hate computers.

~Alex

Sorry the upper/lower filters trick didn't work. The next step would be to try the drive outside of windows. Booting to a windows or factory diagnostics disc will confirm if the drive hardware is okay or not.

So it was probably a loose connection. A friend applied some concentrated violence to the bottom of the laptop and fixed it.

Probably has something to do with the engine hoist that fell on it about 10 months ago. But it had worked since so I didnt think that was it.

Any way I'm happy thanks for the help guys.

~Alex