Sony Vaio Laptop Not Recognizing CD-RW/DVD-ROM or Disk drive

I could use some help with my laptop. I can't play any CDs or DVDs or any 3.5" disks. I'm not sure what happened. Can anyone help me with trouble shooting? Are there any settings I can change on my computer that might help it recognize the other drives?
Thanks!

 

Jessica,

Check Device Mgr, thru ControlPanel/System. See if those devices are even listed there, and/or if they have any notations indicating problems. Report back with what you find.

 

Winbob,
I'm having the same problem. The DVD/CDRW doesn't show up in device manager at all (or I'm notlooking in the right place). The drive will eject and spin up before Vista comes up, but won't do either after. The Vaio VGN-C240E came OEM with Vista and the DVD/CDRW. The owner said they deleted some windows updates. I've since rolled back to a prior restore point and successfully patched Vista to SP1, but the drive is still unrecognized. I even unplugged and replugged, tried discovery service on "Add Hardware," and tried another drive (DVD) that I know works - still same problem persists.

Any ideas? This is mysterious!!!