T500 CD-Rom not recognized - new install?

I have a Lenovo T500 and suddenly the CD Drive is not recognized - AT ALL.

I do have three CDs from Lenovo.
1 of 1 Microsoft Windows XP
1 of 2 Microsoft Windows XP SP2
2 of 2 Microsoft Windows XP SP2

Tried to update driver. No joy.

Plugged in a USB external CD Drive. Same error as with internal CD Drive. Error Code 39 in Device Manager. So no access to a CD Drive.

So I transferred the contents of the three CDs to a 32GB SD Card and can plug it into the USB port of the T500.

How do I "kick off" a clean install and re-virginize this machine. And, btw, I have never been able to successfully installed XP SP3 on this machine, so I am running SP2. If I can get this machine clean and back to SP2, the first thing I would do, before any software loading or anything, would be to update to SP3 and see how that goes.

I don't see any files on any of the CDs (now on SD card), that say "Setup" or anything. I do have on the SD Card

Disk 1 of 1
Win51
Win51IP
Win51IP.SP2
also
PDALANG.TXT
WINBOM.INI
and five folders...
I386
MFG
PRELOAD
RECOVERY
SWWORK

Disk 1 of 2 has three folders
MFG
RECOVERY
SWWORK

Disk 2 of 2 has the same three folders but different contents in them.

Since I can't kick off a boot from the USB drive and have no access to a CD Drive, how should I go about starting a clean install. Any help out there.

Thanks,
Mr. Newbie to this forum...

 

1. You need to update BIOS first. I know a guy who installed XP SP1 3 years ago on fast new computer because of old BIOS!
2. Go into BIOS when computer starts up (f2 or f10) check in the internet the right button for your model if it is laptop!
3. Choose boot options settings. the optical drive must be first. The computer MUST see Cd/DVD no matter if windows doesn't.
4. Save and exit.
5. Put a CD/DVD inside and reboot. Installation must to start.

Other way:
...3. Choose boot options settings. USB External device must be first. And Enable USB external boot in BIOS.
4. Format Flash drive or SD card using USB card-reader and HP USB DISK STORAGE FORMAT TOOL in NTFS.
5. Copy all files from disk to USB Device.
6. Reboot and installation must start from USB.

 

Dear James,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have/had two problems. One was a machine that didn't want to successfully update to XP SP3.

The other was a suddenly not recognized CD Rom Drive. Since I was "lead" to believe that the driver was corrupt I downloaded and paid for Driver Whiz (a firm with MANY names). I didn't expect much and the driver they offered didn't help.

BUT when I asked for my money back (60 Day Guarentee), they offered the following, which I did, and which immediately and completely brought the CD Drive back to life.

btw, my Registry entry did have entries for both the UpperFilters and LowerFilters.
************************
************************
From Driver Detective Support
************************
CD/DVD Drive is Corrupt or Missing (Error Codes 10, 19, 31, 32, 39, 41)

Note: The solution provides requires editing of the registry.

1.To begin the process, start the Registry Editor.

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
On Vista machines, Run is accessible through Accessories.
Click the plus sign (+) next to the following folders in the left side of the window pane:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet
Control
Class
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
2.Look for any of the following names in the right side of the window pane:
UpperFilters
LowerFilters
3.If any of the items above are listed, right-click on the item and select Delete.

4.Be sure to restart your computer after you have deleted the files in the registry.

5.Open My Computer (XP) or Computer (Vista) and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned.

6.In some cases, you may need to reinstall some programs such as CD or DVD burning software, iTunes, or Nero

If you need further assistance, please reply to this email which helps to provide a point of reference.

Sincerely,
PC Drivers HeadQuarters Support Team

 

Good for you. How much did you pay?
registry is a part of Windows, so machine would recognize CD/DVD when install windows offline (booting from cd) no matter what.
So what about 1-st problem with SP3?
Windows XP with time gets slower and troubler. It happens because of mistakes in registry (like this), fragmentation which can be easily cured, and bad compatibility of soft. Thats why If such bad mistakes start happening in 1-2 years I uninstall Windows.