How Do I Troubleshoot an HP Laptop CD/DVD Driver?

If you're having issues with your HP laptop's CD or DVD drive, it might not be a physical issue with the drive. Instead, the driver your optical drive uses may be corrupted or not working properly, or may need to be upgraded. Troubleshooting an HP laptop's CD or DVD driver is not difficult and takes approximately 10 minutes. If the troubleshooting steps do not resolve your driver issue, you may have a physical problem with the HP's optical drive.

1 Turn your HP laptop off. Turn the laptop over and find the battery release latch. Move this latch to the unlock position, indicated by an open lock icon on the bottom of the laptop. Pull the battery out of the computer and set it aside.

2 Unscrew the 11-mm screw connecting the CD or DVD drive to the laptop. Slide the drive out of the laptop and inspect it for any physical damage. Reinsert it into the drive bay, fasten it with a screw, and put the battery back in if the optical drive looks to physically be OK.

3 Turn your laptop on. Click "Start," then "My Computer." See if your optical drive is listed. Check if multiple CD or DVD burning software has been installed if the optical drive is not detected. Multiple burning applications can cause registry issues with the computer. HP recommends running the Microsoft Fix It utility to fix registry issues with its device drivers (see Resources for a link to this utility). Run the utility and follow the onscreen instructions to attempt to automatically fix the problem. If CD or DVD burning software is not the issue, continue to the next steps.

4  Go  to  "Start,"  then  right-click  "My  Computer."  Select  the  "Properties"  option.  Go  to  the "Hardware" tab and hit the "Device Manager" button. Look under the "DVD/CD-ROM" listing to see if the optical drive is listed.

5 Double-click your optical drive listing and go to the "Driver" tab. Choose "Uninstall." Click "Next" on each screen until the uninstall procedure completes.

6 Go to HP's Support & Drivers site (see Resources). Enter your HP laptop product model and download the optical driver for your specific laptop model and operating system. Double-click the downloaded file and click "Next" to each of the prompts until it completes. Restart your computer and check "My Computer" to see if the drive is recognized.

Tips & Warnings

If your optical drive is not recognized by Windows and none of the steps fix your problem, the optical drive may have mechanically failed and need replacement