text: Check on anything that you have installed recently.  Norton Antivirus suddenly made my CD drives vanish a few years ago so I had to uninstall it and stop using it and then all was fine.  Some software like that can cause them to vanish.  Try uninstalling recent software and see if that helps.  If your drive has power - drawer opens etc then it should be recognised even if it won't read a CD.  Try a system restore to before you had this problem and all should be well.