Windows updates fail and optical drive not recognized

I am not even sure where to start. Last night I went to play a DVD in my HTPC and realized the drive is not showing in Explorer. I checked the device manager and see that it reads it but with a exclamation mark next to it. I try to uninstall/reinstall and it fails when loading the driver. I reconnected and with no help. I tried another drive and I get the same thing. I even tried another SATA port on the MB.

On another note my Windows updates are failing. I can list them all but they are all Windows Update for x64 Base System.

The only thing I have done recently is I noticed my external drive where I have my Windows backup go was getting full so I deleted it. I can't imagine this did anything but I figured I mention it.

Gigabyte p55-ud3r motherboard
Intel i5-750
OCZ 128GB SSD
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

 

Have you tried simply reverting to a previous restore point? Next to the exclamation mark will be an error code and description could you post it, when it fails to load the driver is there a description of the failure or an error code, of so post that.

Is there one specific update that fails or numerous?

Did you delete the contents of the drive or delete the drive, if the later where did you delete the drive from?

 

Unfortunately Windows restore was turned off. I did fix it though.