Dimension E520 dont recognize cd/dvd player?

Do not switch the plugs, they are not the same and you
can damage the system.  Lets start with the CD drive
first. 

Look in the Device Manager .............

Start | Control Panel | System in classic view | Hardware tab | Device Manager

Click on the (+) next to DVD/CD-ROM drives.  Right-click the drive and select
Properties.  Is there an Error Code (number)?

what is tp and how do i turn it on because i was at that screen and both sata 4 and 5 said that it that there was nothing found 

not in the device manager..

i have disc drives but the only thing that shows up is my hard drive

and also im recognizing a floppy disk drive which i dont have could it be the P9 is plugged in the cd/dvd drive and thats supposed to be the floppy disk drive plug... should i try and switch the P9 for the P8?

The port the drive is connected to is SATA 4 or 5? Whatever
one it is on, switch the cable to another SATA port and see
if that makes a difference.  Be sure to enter the BIOS and
enable that port.

Did anything happen to the system when the problem occurred?

nothing happened i went to the F2 screen again and the device id still comes up unknown

ok it was on SATA 1 so im gonna try SATA 4.

nothing that i know of went wrong it was a while ago and my mothers computer.

only the one.... so unplug the the P9 and the orange cord from the cd/dvd and the other end of the orange cord from the motherboard how long should i wait b4 plugging them back in

tp (to) was a typo, my bad typing.  If the drive is not found
in the BIOS, redo the connection at the back of the drive.
One connector is the power and the other is the SATA cable.
Follow the SATA cable to the motherboard and redo the
connection there also.

How many CD drives are in your system?

It is possible that the drive may have failed.  See if you can
run the diagnostics on it.  The Diagnostics should be on your
hard drive.  Press F12 at startup while the blue Dell is on the
screen.  This will take you to the boot menu where the Utility
Partition or Diagnostics will be a choice.  Run the Custom Test
for the drives and have a data CD (not music CD) ready for the
read test.

It is also possible the diagnostics may not recognize that the
drive is there.  Give it a try.

Skybird: Any chance it could be a corrupted cdrom.sys or a corrupted bios? Maybe a system restore for the former. I would say a bios flash for the latter but we know what can happen with those sometimes. :smileyhappy: It is seeing the drive, just not recognizing it correctly.

 

ps3pokrplaya: You wouldn't happen to have another cd/dvd drive that you could try in that system, do you? That might tell if the bios isn't up to snuff.

i ran the tests(passed all) but nothing came up for the drivers of cd/dvd so i guess the player could be bad but yesterday when i was doing what u were saying i unplugged the cables the put them back in and the player opened and another time closed but never showed up.... so thank you for your trouble

Another thought: Reset the NVRAM, also called Clearing CMOS Settings here ...............

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE520/en/SM_EN/syssetup.htm#wp1055520