laptop cd drive not recognized

I have a sony vaio VGN- TX17GP/B laptop , the cd drive is not recognized in bios or windows , the tray stilll opens and gets power ? Ive checked the connection and it is fine disconnected reconnected and its fine ! Im thinking of getting a replacement and trying that the model is UJ-832MSXC-S made by panasonic in 1995! I was wandering can I test any points with a multimeter or something else I can try before I waste money on a new one ? thanks

 

Sounds like the cd-rom is hooped, or it could be a bios problem. You could try flashing your bios, not recommended though if you screw up your whole computers hooped.

If you have another laptop handy you could put the cdrom in that one and see if the bios detects it.

 

how can i flash bios, i have usb ports available ? sorry there is no hdd which im getting soon 1.8" ide , I can do a network boot and install ! my only boot options are Otical,flopy,network and hard disk, this is a mini vaio which uses cf connections to motherboard, will wait for hdd first till I do anything further, thanks