K.....now an additional development.... Periodically, the system appears to temporarily freeze up--as in it won't accept any input for at least 2 mins.  While this is occuring the DVD control buttons as well as the disc-in-use indicator light light up, and the dvd drive starts making noise as well.  In particular, this happens soon after the user has started the computer, and can be doing something as seemingly innocuous as surfing the web.  Again any help here would be greatly appreciated.  The urge to send the thing back is growing stronger by the day.

You can boot into the bios and try disabling the DVD drive and see if the error disappears. if it does then the DVD drive might going bad.

Thanks for the reply Davet50....  Well, I checked the BIOS and surprise surprise, the drive isn't listed anywhere.  SATA0 is the Samsung HD, and SATA1 registers as not detected, and then thats it for the listing.

 

This is looking more and more like its a good thing that we kept the box. 

Is there an option to turn the SATA ports on/off? The not detected part would have me thinking that the drive is indeed bad.

If you are within the 21day window then I would say ship it back outside of that you will more than likely have to go through support to optain a new drive and or system.

 

Keep us posted as to how it all shakes out..

I had a very similar problem with my XPS One.  The Blu-ray drive would work for a little while and then the drive would just keep spinning, causing the computer to become unresponsive and not allowing me to eject the disc.  Dell sent a technician to replace the Blu-ray drive, but upon doing so I got the same "ODD detect failure" error for the optical drive that is described here.  The solution seems to be that either the ribbon cable connecting the Blu-ray to the computer is loose or reversed in orientation, as when the technician returned and righted the cable, everything works now.

I hope this solution helps.

HELP! I am having the exact same problem. My XPS One is about two years old and all warranties, etc. have expired.

Months ago, the CD/DVD device started clicking non-stop. None of the blue lighted keys will work or perform functions for the disc player.

I was told to connect/reconnect the optical drive ribbon cable, and now I get the same message of ODD detect failure, wanting me to press F1 to resume. It then takes several minutes before the computer is even operatable. The system says the drive can't be detected, and I can't load a disc.

Am I screwed? Anything listed above has already been tried.............

Same problem!!!

Opened the case (its real easy 2 screws on the bottom and slide the cover up) and checked the ribbon cable that went to the drive and it was in place but the little clamp was open! ODD failure Problem fixed!!!