DVD or CD Drive Not Working

Although DVDs and CDs have been phased out from mainstream use largely, some users may still have valuable or sensitive data that has been recorded onto such storage devices. Even after years of lying dormant somewhere, there shouldn't be any issues when inserting the DVD or CD into the drive connected to your computer, if everything is in working order. What to do, however, if the drive refuses to read the data?

The first step is to make sure that the format of the DVD or CD corresponds to the formats supported by your particular drive. If everything checks out, take a look at the CD or DVD to see if the surface has been scratched heavily as that could prevent the stored data from being read properly.

On the software side of things, users might want to try and reinstall the drivers for their CD/DVD drive. Type device manager into the search box on the taskbar and open the top result. In the window that appears, expand the DVD/CD ROM drives section by clicking on the arrow node in from of it. Select your device and right-click it. From the available options, choose 'Uninstall device.' All that is left is to reboot your computer. On startup, Windows should install the missing CD/DVD device driver.