New DVD Drive Not Recognized - Reinstall OS?

Do you mean a USB drive?  Which model of the 745 do you have?  I've seen the mini-tower; it has connectors for a 9 pin serial, an LPT port, about six USB connectors, and an Ethernet port.

If it is a USB drive, it will not show up in BIOS, only in the Device Manager after it has properly installed.  Does your drive have its own power connection, or is it powered through the USB port?

And no, I would not reinstall the OS until you've tried some other things to get Windows to recognize your drive.

Hi, thanks for your response. I have the ultra small form factor.

This unit is not USB, it plugs in to an open drive bay on the front, much like with my Dell laptops.

See link:

Looking at the part number, it says it's for Vista. But, it is the unit that fits that machine, and this link says it's compatible with that model.

Thanks,

Dawn

Let's take this a step at a time.  According to the on line docs for the 745, the module can accept a floppy, DVD/CD ROM/RW drive, or a second hard drive.  The optical and hard drives use an IDE interface.

First, do you have power on the drive?  Can you open the drive by pressing the small button at the lower right of the drive door?  If so, that's good.

Second, restart the computer and go to BIOS.  See what listings you have for the modular bay.  On a full size computer that used an IDE interface I would need to set the BIOS setup to Automatic in order to see a drive.  According to the sample of the 745 setup program, you should have a listing for that port in the "Drives" section, but if you don't see it there, look around.  Your small form factor can only hold two drives, so you should have two settings to Automatic, and they should report a model number for each drive.  The docs are a bit ambiguous, but I get the feeling that your boot drive should be SATA 0 and the module Drive 5, or whatever the listing is for the second port.

Once you have made certain that the BIOS is switched on for the drive, escape out saving changes, and allow the computer to boot.  Go to the Device Manager, and look for IDE controllers.  If you don't find one, see if you can give me a list of what you do see.

I need to stop here and see what you found.  It might take a bit to get back to you, but I'll be back.

Hello - Thanks for the assistance.

Yes, the DVD modular unit does have power when plugged in. When I initially plug it into the modular bay, the green light comes on. When I say plug in, I mean that I am pushing it in to the one open drive bay, and it seats firmly.

In the BIOS (version 2.62.) under System, it shows Onboard SATA, then the next entry is for Onboard or USB CD-ROM and reads "Not Present".

Still in the BIOS, under Drives, the Modular Bay was set to ON by default. I changed it to read IDE here, and saved changes, but the system still doesn't see the drive.

It is not showing under My Computer with a drive letter, and I am not seeing it in Device Manager. There are no splats indicating a problem either with any of my hardware.

Any additional advice appreciated. I had a similar one of these machines (Optiplex 755), and after making the change in the BIOS it came right up.  

I have made screen shots, so let me know if there is something in particular you want to look at. Thanks!

Have you any way of testing the drive?  Unless you have settings for the module bay that make a difference in the symptoms you have so far presented, I would say that either the drive or the bay is faulty.

One thing else; I've noticed on my own machines that they like to be restarted in order to read the drive parameters into the NVRAM.  Have you restarted the computer while the DVD drive remains installed in the computer?  (Probably fifty times already, I guess!)

And one more thing I should have asked; is there a jumper block on the drive, and if so, is it strapped for cable select?  Most Dells seem to prefer that strapping, though if it is the only drive on the IDE circuit you can probably get away with strapping the drive as a master.  I should tell you that this is grasping at a straw, as I don't remember having to worry about this on the DVD drive I installed into my Inspiron 5160, which looks very similar to the drive you indicated.  I really think the drive is bad.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I did install the drive in another machine, and it is not detected there either. So, I guess I will try again with Dell tech support on this one. Maybe they will agree that a replacement is in order.

I was researching this myself and wanted to lend a hand, because this was driving me crazy.  I checked with a coworker of mine who had to go through several Dell support personnel to get this answer:

Restoring the Setup Defaults on a Dell Precision™ Workstation by Entering the BIOS

If you have changed the options inside of the System Setup and are unsure what the settings should be, there is an easy way to reset the original factory settings without having to confirm every settings page. To reset the default configuration, perform the following steps:

1. Restart your computer.
2. At the first text on the screen, or the Dell logo, press the key every three seconds until the message Entering Setup appears. The System Setup screen appears.
3. Press the + keys simultaneously to load the factory defaults. The system emits a beep tone to indicate that the factory defaults have been restored.