My factory CD-ROM just quit working all of a sudden. Its an internal Samsung SC140 that came installed in my 1998 HP Pavilion 6630. It will eject and close the disc tray, but it won't recognize any CD. If I put one in it just says "Please insert disk into drive D:". Is it just burnt out, or can I fix it somehow. Should I try to find a driver and reinstall it? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
You might want to try cleaning the laser lens in the CD-ROM drive. Try a cotton swab just barely moistened with alcohol or distilled water. Crud on the lens can make it difficult for the drive to see the laser light being reflected from the CD media.
What you might need to do is to uninstall the drive from Windows, reboot and let Windows automatically reinstall the device for you. To do so, (1) Control Panel, (2) System, (3) Hardware, (4) Device Manager, (5) Expand the DVD/CD-ROM Drives entry, right click on thr troublesome drive and uninstall it. Now simply reboot and let Windows try and repair itself.