Check in the IDE or ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager and there is a setting to disable one or both IDE channels. Its location varies from OS to OS. Your CDROM is in the Secondary IDE Channel. If both IDE channels are enabled, and then a reboot does not show your drive, it may be "belly-up"

is the drive seen in bios?

yeah i went into the device manager thing and i saw something that was unchecked it was the dma thing

what ever that is, anyway i clicked it, restarted my laptop and its working great thanks for all your help, take care...

Try a Firmware update if one is available for that model of DVDROM

 woops i spoke too soon, it went back to not seeing the dvd/cdrom, i did the same procedure as before and it did not work, i checked the bios and i dont see anything that says cdrom or anything like that can you be more explicit, what else can i do, please i need help i just posted this thing on ebay when it was working i dont want to pull the ad, anyone please help so i can get this fixed before it is sold...i know it must be something simple...

ok can you explain to me how to do this in baby langauge, i know how to go into the bios by hitting function and f1 while the dell logo comes up, i have bios verseion a03, i just dont know where exactly to look in reference to the drives... i dont think its hardware because it spins up when i turn it on, plus i had it working a few minutes ago, i was playing a dvd in it no problems, but i shut it off and turned it back on and poof! it went back to not seeing the drive...i really hope we can find a solution to this...

If the drive is not recognized in BIOS then you have a hardware problem.  Windows can only access it if it is recognized in your BIOS.

David, Your BIOS version is ancient! The latest version is A23 and perhaps somewhere in the interim, support was added for DVD or at least improved. I would try a BIOS Flash to A23 before doing any thing else.

http://support.dell.com/filelib/criteria.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen    Select BIOS Flash from the list and follow the links to this download        I40_A23.exe / 501kb / 71 sec / Floppy     Download this to your Desktop, open and unzip it to a formatted Floppy Diskette in your floppy drive. You can do all this on a PC.  Put the Diskette in your Laptop's Floppy Drive, have your AC Adapter connected and a charged battery in place, and then reboot the Laptop. You should boot into DOS to do the flash, and then just follow the directions. If you do not come up in DOS, check your boot order for Diskette 1st.

There are instructions included with the files from Dell on the procedure.