DVD-RW disappeared

Hello I have a Gateway 510 running on Xp Home edition sp3. Last week I noticed that the d:\ drive was no where to be found. I ran System Restore
but it was still not there. I thought maybe I got a virus, but my firewall/anti-virus(Trend Pc-cillin) did not detect anything. And I run scan my computer religiously.

Before I go buy a new optical drive, can I do something else? I have unplugged the DVD-RW drive, loaded windows with no results. It doesn't recognize it. BTW the DVD-RW drive is a Hitachi-LG drive, model GSA-4040B. Oh yeah, when I boot up, or insert a disk the drive does show life, then dies.
Thank you in advance for any help, guidance or kind words...adios:wave

 

Try this:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=145532

 

i had that happen to me once on a gateway pc, what worked for me was i turned it off unplugged the burner (one that no longer showed up in windows) and turned on pc and let xp boot up, then shut down the pc and plugged the burner back into the pc (power + ribbon cable) and turned the pc back again and let xp boot again and this time xp detected my burner (this was a long winded way of telling you what worked for me, try it)

 

Thank you dlb and Hugh750 for you suggestions. This is what I did and the results. I tried Hugh750 plan of attack first. I disconnected the optical drive, cable and power supply. Then loaded windows XP. Once it loaded I shut off the computer and reconnected the drive. Nothing, the drive was still not recognized by the my computer.
The I tried dlb's idea. I click on the link to the previous forum. I had previously done what was suggested there before. Removing the upper filters and lower filters through the Microsoft website. Nonetheless I tried again, and added the registry info into my registry. I shut off the computer connected the optical driver. When I re-boot the computer a screen pops up directing me to hit F4 to enter BIOS setup. Once there I can see that the computer recognizes the optical drive. I select the exit and save option and leave the BIOS screen. It then directs me back to the original screen that directs me to hit F4 to enter BIOS setup. This happens everytime when I exit and save changes from BIOS. When I hit exit only without saving then XP loads. HELP!!!!:confused