No drivers are installed for this device plds dvd+-rw du_8a3s

Update: After spending about 2 hours and $94+ with Dell customer support, ultimately the registry entry for the dvd drive was hosed and it had to be reentered. Prior to that the tech flashed bios twice, once to A09 and lastly to A15. He also loaded some updated chipset drivers and a couple of others.

Not sure if the bios update and driver updates were necessary however the dvd is now recognized by Win7, thankfully.

I also tried using one of those 'driver download sites'. Joke. Will be contacting credit card company in the AM to deny that charge for sure.

Not really sure how a fresh install of windows would hose the registry but it did.

Hi Hwbuff,

This was likely the old upper and lower filter problem. A very common issue, and it can happen even after a fresh install.

Sorry to hear you went for the "driver download" scam. Hope you get your money back.

OK, more information on the situation with my dvd drive. After spending a good bit of time with tech support the day before yesterday, 23 December, and getting the dvd recognized, upon reboot it went away again.

Yesterday reloaded Win7 with the assistance of tech. No DVD! Let the system run and go to sleep. Upon waking up the system the DVD drive again appeared. Went away again on reboot and back after awaking again. Sure seems like a setting somewhere. Could it be a registry setting or somewhere else within the OS?

About to do a web search regarding this issue but thought would post here as well in case someone has an answer.

Reminder, this is a Latitude E6410 laptop with I5 M520 CPU w/8GB ram running Win7 Pro 64.

Merrry Christmas

The first thing I would do is check the upper and lower filter registry entries. Use the link I've got below and find the manual registry edit procedure.

No Upper or LowerFilters entries in Registry.

Ok, so that sounds to me like a possible hardware issue. I would first check the power and data connections to the drive, and also the data cable connection to the motherboard. I generally recommend pulling each connector out and re-seating it.

If that does not resolve things, then you need to pay attention to what happens in device manager when the drive goes missing. Do you see the device, but just not the drive in Explorer, for example?

This is a laptop and  actually I have pulled the dvd and reinstalled it. It's in a modular bay.

When device goes missing it is gone in all places in window. Not in device manager and not in computer. It is however recognized in the bios and can be used to boot an OS install disk. 

When you boot the system, is it missing every time? And then does it re-appear after resuming from sleep every time?

Also, try booting the system with a disc (non-bootable) in the drive and tell me if the drive is still missing on boot.

Osprey, the answers to your questions are yes & yes.

Also booted with a disc in the drive and the drive still is missing.

Interesting this is that when I attach an external dvd drive via usb both drives show up when rebooting or restarting. Strange.

When you boot the system, check the BIOS and let me know if you see the DVD drive there.

Yes, the drive is in the BIOS. As previously state, am able to use a bootable disc at system start.

Two other things that concern me - 1) if I replace the HDD witn an SSD, I most likely will disable Hibernation & Sleep as I have read where SSDs to not like to be put in those states. That, in turn, would prevent the system from recognizing the DVD drive as system sits currently. 2) If I replace the DVD with a hard drive in a caddy, would the same issue I'm having now prevent a HDD in the modular bay from being seen by Windows?

...Can't say that I'm sure what the exact source of this problem is.

Apparently neither can Dell Tech. Have been keeping them appraised of the progress or lack thereof since OP.

If it is a hardware issue with the drive, then putting an HDD in a caddy would not repeat the same behavior. If it is a software issue, of course, then performing a clean installation onto the SSD would presumably solve the problem. Can't say that I'm sure what the exact source of this problem is.

At some point, they'll ship you another drive to see if that helps.