Help! No cd\dvd detect. DRM related?

Hello!
I have an M15X with the bluray optical drive. Everything worked fine until a few days ago. Now I am in a state where I cannot read CDs.

This machine is running windows 7 64

Here are the specifics:
> a cd rom drive is detected and working properly in device manager
> when I insert a cd, the system never detects it
> if I try to eject the cd nothing happens. I do have volume control and stealth ability
> if I restart the PC I cannot eject the cd
> If I do a hard restart or shut down totally and turn on, around the time of the BIOS splash screen- the cd rom initializes. At this time I am able to eject the cd with the touch button! but if I wait too long and windows starts, then the eject is disabled again.
>strangely enough, if I connect a USB cdrom, it also will show as a drive in device manager and my computer but will not detect cds.

Additional information:
>uninstalling the cdrom from device manager and allowing it to redetect has no effect
>mircosoft fixit for cdrom never detects a cd when it calls for one to be inserted
>regedit-> the upper and lower filters are missing
>this was not an issue until Tuesday

Last thing to change:
Everything seemed to work fine until Tuesday. I installed the steam client and downloaded my first steam game: south park stick of truth. I am running the steam client in offline mode.

Only in researching the cd rom problem did I find it may be caused by some DRM- and then I connected the dots to steam. Short of uninstalling everything is there any known issue with steampowered (I think that is the DRM they use) and the M15X? Has anyone else had issues like this?

I will uninstall as a last resort but I would like to try to resolve without having to do so if at all possible....

 

Update:

This is not game or drm related but I am not sure what is going on.
Here is the situation:

The dvd\cd\bluray drive works as long as it is not in windows apparently! I did a fresh install from the Alienware cds. On bootup, the cd was detected and everything installed. Once in windows, however, even though the cdrom drive is listed and there are no problems reported in device manager, a disc is never detected. I also cannot eject a disc if there is one in the drive. If I reboot the pc, the drive does not initialize and I still cannot eject. If I shut down and power on, then the drive initializes during the bios splash screen (the typical power up\clunk it has done from the beginning and is common to my m17x) and I can eject a cd by continually mashing the eject capacitor button but if I wait too long and windows starts to boot then once again I cannot eject.

The other capacitor buttons work: volume, boost, command center.

This is not a fresh install with just windows 7 being fully updated and all the dell drivers back in. Does anyone have any ideas? It is strange. Can a rive be failing in just windows? I don't think it would be a setting if it is after a fresh recover...
Help!

 

I found this thread..
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/555963-optical-drive-not-reading-discs.html

But mine DOES read, just not in windows.
same problem?

 

Solved.

It was the CA30N unit.
I pulled a 100% function unit from my m17x and swapped it in and it operates 100%.
Amazing that it could fail in such a way to work on bootup but not in Windows.

On a side note, there is a different bracket/cable between the two machines so those need to be swapped to do this swap.

As the m15x is more of a mobile unit- it was best to carry the dvdrwbluray rom over to it

 

Glad you were able to figure this out! I've had problems with my Blu ray drive not reading specific disks that other PC's could in the past. Some of the other symptoms you explained are pretty similar to ones my drive had as well. Thanks for sharing your solution!

 

First, I thought it was the registry but if after the clean install the same issue persisted, it was almost 99% possible that the drive wasn't working. I'm glad you found the culprit.