I was in the process of using my DVD drive to get information off of it (I was backing up a DVD I own, which I've done many, many times without problem). During the middle of the process, it seemed to stop even though the DVD had not seemed to have problems in it earlier- DVD shrink still said it would not proceed. I looked and saw the drive was still reading, so I shut down my computer and gave it up for the evening.

Now, however, when I start my computer, that DVD drive is not shown in the "My Computer" section nor is it available to look at in the device manager. It still opens and closes, but it is as though the computer has suddenly ceased recognising it. I have some light troubleshooting experience, but at this point I'm unsure what steps to take next to find out what is wrong and how to fix it. I've gotten wonderful help from here at Tom's Hardware forums in the past, and I'm grateful to know that once again I have you guys to depend on to try to figure this problem out.

My DVD drive is the Sony DRU530A (here). I was in the process of making an image of a DVD when this happened, not burning one.

I know you guys like this stuff, so I'll put my system specs below. It's been a while (fortunately for my PC) since I've been here, so if you need anything more, just let me know.


EDIT- I noticed the 'read/write' light was on even when the drive was empty. So I shut down, disconnected the power from the drive, started up again normally. Then I shut down, reconnected, and started up- now the drive works normally like before. Any ideas as to what was wrong? Is my drive in any danger? Also, the drive is a slave to a CD-writer drive that is kinda on its last legs.


AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.2ghz (MMX, 3Dnow)
1024mb RAM
Windows XP
DirectX 9.0c
Graphics Card- Radeon X800 Pro AGP (display mode 1024x768, 75Hz)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
200 gigabyte HD
Cable Modem internet access with Linksys (Vonage) router