New user / M17x dvd/rw not detected...

Hello everybody,been stalking this forum for awhile, love the reviews and the community, people seem helpful

so here is my problem...

Running win8 on an alienware M17X R4.

tried mounting a disk image (.iso) with win8 and with daemon tools. they both gave me errors regarding my dvd/rw so I checked my device manager and found an error next to the emulated drive and next to my dvd/rw. (windows cannot start device ... error code 19)

So I tested my dvd rw and realized it doesn't work. tried updating drivers but they were up to date. Dell website has a firmware update for my dvdrw 8x but when I try to run the updater, I get ATAPI device cannot be found....

I can eject dvd's but can't read or write anything; the dvd drive icon doesn't even appear in windows.

I even tried to run a Boot DVD with linux on it from bios but nothing...

the only thing left would be to disconnect/reconnect another dvd drive to see if its the MOBO or the dvd, but i dont want to void my warranty because I only have 1 month left on it...

I think I either have a faulty dvdrw drive or a faulty motherboard / connector on my not even 1 year old alienware M17x R4 I adore so much...

Makes me kind of sad because it's my 2nd problem (the 1st was a faulty network card (when does this happen?) it was replaced by a tech) with my laptop since I got it and I feel like my laptop is dying out so fast, especially since the shiny new R5 is out now...

I hope someone can help me...

Thanks in advance,

Alex

 

As it's till under warranty, call tech support for a full repair