Suddenly, XP fails to recognize my optical drives

This problem has me between a rock and a hard place! In "MyComputer", neither
the DVD+RW nor the CD-RW drive is listed or recognized. Naturally nothing
plays when I load a DVD or a CD. In "Device Manager", both show up with large
yellow question marks, but nothing in "properties" suggests there is anything
wrong.

I am certain many of you will have already anticipated that at one point or
another in my trouble-shooting efforts, I was instructed to re-load he
original applications, etc. This was predictable, because, of course, there
is NO WAY to reload anythin from a CD or DVD!!!

System Recovery (or is it System Restore? - I get them mixed up) will gladly
take me back in time to when everything seemed to work optimally --
everything, that is, except for the optical drives!

I am faced with having to re-virginize the beast, but that involves a
L-O-N-G drawn-out process of trying to save all previously un-backed-up work
to 3-1/2 floppies. I've got about 500 of them -- I hope that will be enough!
But then, I ask myself: once I've backed-up my files, how do I re-virginize
without a CD-ROM drive in which to place the 10-CD set of System Recovery
disks?

Trust me - since installing XP for the first time two years ago, I have
definitely spent more time reading books, articles, FAQs, etc. than surfing.
(Oh, how I yearn for the good old days of Windows 98, when one only had to
worry about system crashes twice a day and recovery from cataclysmic system
melt-downs was only a once-in-five-or-six-months sort of thing!

Robert, I have been up grading to new computers over the years. I used works
4.0 on an HP computer. when i bought a new e- machine i transfered my
documents to the new computer and now i can 't read them or work on them. I
thought works would work with the new one . Have any ideas. Is there a
product out there that will let me work on my documents or convert them to a
word doc. Help.......Chap

"Robert Boyd" wrote:

> This problem has me between a rock and a hard place! In "MyComputer", neither
> the DVD+RW nor the CD-RW drive is listed or recognized. Naturally nothing
> plays when I load a DVD or a CD. In "Device Manager", both show up with large
> yellow question marks, but nothing in "properties" suggests there is anything
> wrong.
>
> I am certain many of you will have already anticipated that at one point or
> another in my trouble-shooting efforts, I was instructed to re-load he
> original applications, etc. This was predictable, because, of course, there
> is NO WAY to reload anythin from a CD or DVD!!!
>
> System Recovery (or is it System Restore? - I get them mixed up) will gladly
> take me back in time to when everything seemed to work optimally --
> everything, that is, except for the optical drives!
>
> I am faced with having to re-virginize the beast, but that involves a
> L-O-N-G drawn-out process of trying to save all previously un-backed-up work
> to 3-1/2 floppies. I've got about 500 of them -- I hope that will be enough!
> But then, I ask myself: once I've backed-up my files, how do I re-virginize
> without a CD-ROM drive in which to place the 10-CD set of System Recovery
> disks?
>
> Trust me - since installing XP for the first time two years ago, I have
> definitely spent more time reading books, articles, FAQs, etc. than surfing.
> (Oh, how I yearn for the good old days of Windows 98, when one only had to
> worry about system crashes twice a day and recovery from cataclysmic system
> melt-downs was only a once-in-five-or-six-months sort of thing!