I am new to this forum, so please be patient with me, as I have officially lost my patience with this dvd drive.

For some reason, my DVD-R drive has simply disappeared. And, although this is a VERY common problem with Vista and HP, tech support is useless and there seems to be no way to fix it.

Here is what I know...
If I thought the problem was the drive itself, I would just replace it, but the actual hardware seems to be working. I can hear it and it lights up when I put a disc into it. The problem is that my laptop does not recognize that it's there.

Here's what I have done....
--> I ran fix-it, showed nothing wrong, but drive still missing
--> Went to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} in order to delete upper/lower filters, restarted, nothing changed.
--> I even tried the hibernate "fix" and nothing.
--> I have checked in Device Manager and there is no listing for the drive. It is not there at all.
--> I tried to retrieve the drivers, but without knowing the details of the drive, I found that difficult. I tried to retrieve the info from my back-up hard drive, but do not have any access to it. I contacted HP tech support and after escalating the issue, they sent me back-up CDs. (Since the drive is not recognized, they are useless).

My patience has worn out! I need help! Any and all suggestions are welcome at this point!!!!!
**When responding, please keep in mind that, although I am somewhat computer literate, I'm not a programmer....