CD writer drive disappears - Help!

[Orangeflava]

For some odd reason my E Drive that has the CD burner has disappeared from my computer. I have done no hardware or software changes, it just disappeared! Why is this and how can I fix it?

What I have:

Dell PIII 500 256 ram Windows XP Pro 80GB hard drive DVD-rom and CD-writer(now missing)

It disappeared once before but came back in a couple of days on it's own. I didn't need to use it at the time so it wasn't a problem then. But now it's been gone for weeks and I want to burn some stuff! What can I do? Can anyone help? Thanks!

[Zoltar]

It may not be that "lost."

Can you see the drive in BIOS, at startup?

Is the drive not listed in Device Manager?

Check, and post back here.

[Orangeflava]

No it is not listed in Device manager or startup. As for Bios, I did a quick check but am not sure I did it right. Where exactly do I look? Under what? I don't think it is there either. I didn't see it.

[griobhta]

Unless your machine shows a flash screen on boot up you should see your bios finding all your drives as it boots just after the mem check

g