Optical drive dead after reassembly, hp dv8230us

EDIT: actually I noticed that my clock was never reset, so my attempts to reset the bios must not have worked. Can anyone tell me how to reset the cmos on this machine without dissassembly?

The latest problem with this lemon piece of crap, is after my 5th reassembly. I finally got a replacement cooling fan that works right, and i put it in yesterday. In a hurry to be done with it, I powered it on without the optical drive plugged in. No problem right? wrong! I put the drive back in after powering back down. The drive gets power now and opens and spins just fine, but neither linux or windows xp can recognize that I have a dvd drive. I've flashed bios and reset it twice. Nothing.... is my cd dead? Am I missing something trivial?

The only thing I can assume is that the bios is now fully convinced that it doesn't have a cdrom drive anymore. Why else would it be getting power but no data?

I'm not taking this laptop all the way apart another time, i refuse to give HP more of my time.

 

and HP let you do all these repairs whilst covering it with the warranty? i think not. try getting hold of another optical drive or get a torch and make sure you didn't go and bend any pins putting it back in. make sure also there isn't some sort of bios option that disables it and check the HP website for driver updates.

 

I checked for bios settings, nothing there. The pins seem all there and the input jack seems fine. I don't see how it could be half seated. I'd have to completely reassemble to be certain though. The warranty was up when the first of these problems (the fan) started. The optical drive board is a daughter board however is connected to the mobo via a vertical plug thingy. I suppose I jiggled that loose when I was playing with the mobo, this is the part that would require a complete disassembly to check. I still don't' see how it would ONLY get power though unless it was half seated, in which it would probably just fry the whole board instead of partially work.

 

bump .

 

perhaps there is some sort of object inside the laptop shorting it

 

Did you make sure you connected the pin to the motherboard?

 

Why would it fry your mobo half seated?
Wouldn't it make more sense if it just has connection on half the connectionpoints instead of them all? (like only giving your cd-rom power or not even that).

 

Go into the BIOS and make sure that the channel that the drive is attached to didn't get set to NONE (powering up the system without the drive attached could theoretically do that). Either manually set it to CD/DVD or AUTO. It should work from that point forward.

 

By the way.... read the instructions here. They may help solve the problem:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00637497.pdf

Specifically seciond 1.2 (resetting the computer).

1.2 Resetting the Computer
If the computer you are servicing has an unknown password,
follow these steps to clear the password. These steps also
clear CMOS:
1. Prepare the computer for disassembly (refer to Section 5.3,
“Preparing the Computer for Disassembly,” for more
information).
2. Remove the real-time clock (RTC) battery (refer to
Section 5.8, “RTC Battery,” for more information on
removing and replacing the RTC battery).
3. Wait approximately 5 minutes.
4. Replace the RTC battery and reassemble the computer.
5. Connect AC power to the computer. Do not reinsert any
battery packs at this time.
6. Turn on the computer.
All passwords and all CMOS settings have been cleared.

This'll probably reset the issue with the DVD drive.

 

this is probably what I need. I mean the data channels are open too, cause I noticed that when I put a cd in there, the data led actually blinks on the front of the computer (not just on the cd). I think I need to reset CMOS this way. I so don't want to take this stupid thing apart again. I may just wait until I have a need for my cdrom drive.

to the other guy: my bios sucks complete , it gives me no options for anything useful

 

Im pretty confident i know what you did.
http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w356/Tippey764/IMGP0421.jpg
http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w356/Tippey764/IMGP0409.jpg
Sorry for the crappy pictures i went and took them real quick. Anyways do you see that little board that the inverter is pointing too? That board extends the IDE port on the motherboard about an inch or two farther out for the disc drive. They do this because they design the same motherboard for the dv8000 and the dv5000 which isnt as wide and dosent need that extender.

 

you're saying I may have unplugged or half-seated that board? I was thinking that. I'll look at it the next time I take the laptop apart to check it. But I'm still seeing the led light in front blink when the cd drive runs - indicating data channels are good - so a cmos reset i the likely culprit as I've reassembled the laptop 4 times prior with no cd probs but this was the only time I accidentally ran the laptop with the drive out.

 

Oh the light turns on. I thought you said it was completly dead such as no power at all. It might be in there at an angle maybe.