[JadeOokami]

I have spent the last three or four hours searching for any answers I could find to this, but I couldn't. Many were very similar, but not exactly the same, and the solutions didn't work for me anyway.

I haven't used the drive for much, other than playing a game now and then. The one I've been playing lately started giving me problems, but I didn't think twice because it had a reputation for that kind of thing. I tried it yesterday, and the autorun didn't pop up, so I went to open it manually - but it simply says "Please insert a disk".
I tried another disk today, thinking that incident was because of the game itself, but I find that I can't open any disks at all.
Not music cds, movie dvds, games, data disks, or system disks.
I tried the one solution where you delete the upper and lower something in the registry (Sorry, I forget it's exact name). I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drive. I tried everything I could think of. I even tried two system restores, but for some reason it was 'unable to complete the process' both times set to different points.
I update my computer regularly, but I haven't installed anything major recently. No hardware changes. The computer is really rather new. Nobody other than my father and myself has used it - I am usually around when he does, and ALWAYS around if someone else does.

I use Vista Home premium, servce pack 2, Dell, AMD Athlon dual core processor 4450e, 2.3 GHz, 4.00 GB RAM, 64-bit system. (Am I missing something important?)

I checked under device manager, and it says everything is working properly, no yellow or red warnings. I am worried that it is either faulty (It's new, that's ridiculous if it is!) or it's a virus. My antivirus picks up nothing strange. But everyonce in a long while Internet Explorer will suddenly start gliching all over the screen, jumping around and breaking up, falling apart and making it impossible until you shut it down and restart it. The desktop and other programs are uneffected. Could that be connected, maybe, somehow?

Any help and I would be very grateful - this thing is drving me crazy.

[ohheck]

do you have a spare drive you can swap it out with? if everything else has failed to work maybe it's the drive!

[Hughv]

I've seen this twice(Drives that aren't used much).
Try disconnecting the cables (Power and data).
Reboot, shut down, reconnect.
Don't ask me why, but it worked both times.

[JadeOokami]

Thanks for the replies! I really hope it's not faulty, it's really not that old.

And when you say unplug the power and data cables, do you mean the ones that go directly to the computer, or the cords inside the case that goes to the drive?

[Hughv]

Inside the case.

[JadeOokami]

Thanks for the advice, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. I took off part of the case, careful unplugged the wires to the drive, restarted it and looked around. Obviously it didn't recognize my drive E anymore. Turned it off, plugged it back in, turned it back on, and the problem is the same as always.
It still doesn't recognize anything.
I did notice though, that when I left a certain music disk in for a long time, if I'd look, it would look (In My Computer) how it's suppose to, same in WMP. But when I click of it, WMP will act like I'm not doing a thing, and My Computer freezes for a while before going blank again and insisting to insert a disk.

[Hughv]

These drives are too cheap to warrant any further troubleshooting. Just get a new one.

[JadeOokami]

I suppose if I have to. The computer was suppose to be a good one, so i'm a bit disappointed. But thanks for the help anyway.