I realized that my CD drive wasn't working about two weeks ago. The disc will still spin but it would not be recognized by Windows. I checked under Device Manager and uninstalled the CD driver. The driver reinstalled itself on restart but it still didn't solve the problem. Customer Support at Sony suggested that I reformat my computer, which I did. But now I realized that the optical driver isn't installed at all! Of course, now the icons for CD/DVDs aren't there under My Computer either. I still can't get Windows to recognize the CD drive. Please someone help!!

Check weather the CD-ROM Drive is connected properlly to the computer. Do you have IDE or SATA CD-ROM Drive? What type of CD-ROM Drive do you have? CD-ROM Drives don't need drivers, so I think its where your CD-ROM Drive is connected to. You may need to install the driver for your IDE or SATA Controller Card connected to that CD-ROM Drive. Or simply connect it to a different IDE/SATA Port.

Reformatting would have wiped the drive and you'd have to reinstall windows--from the cd. So did the reinstall go OK?

Jaw-Dun Thai Wraa: I'm not sure what you mean...I don't have an external CD drive so I don't know how to check if it's connected properly. And furthermore, I'm not sure how to check the type of drive I have..? DAVEINCAPS: Actually, Vaio had a Drive Recovery that reinstalls Windows without the use of a CD.

@karenw00: It would have been helpful if you'd have stated this is a laptop.

Get a bootable cd and see if you can boot with it. If not, the cdrom is likely bad. If it does boot up, the problem must be in windows, which doesn't seem likely after a fresh install. Of course, check that the cable is tightly connected and the IDE controller is enabled in cmos/bios setup.

Oh, a laptop? Then I guess you don't need to check the cable.