HP All in one & External DVD Drive

[Helibeast]

I have a HP DVD External Drive connected to my HP All in One desk top. Worked fine with both CDs and DVDs a year ago.

Not used it for a year and now find the computer will not "see" CDs... it's as if there is no disk in the drive. Works fine with DVDs.

Drive work find in my husband's PC for both CDs and DVDs

Bought another different brand DVD Drive... same problem. So it's definitely the computer. Tried other USB ports.. same issue.  Tried uninstalling the Drive and re-installing.. no joy.

Any ideas?   The only changes I have made in the year are to run requested Windows updates.  BIOS is up to date.

[erico]

Have you verified that the USB ports are working otherwise with USB flash memory thumbdrives?

If that is the case it means that your  HP DVD External Drive is probably drawing too much current for the ports to operate. 

Your husband's PC USB circuits are not having any issues with the current draw.

You can check the  amount of current that a USB port will allow in Power States by use of the Device Management console. 
I use a little USB device I bought on Amazon, called a PowerJive, to see how much current is being drawn by my ports when I run into power problems.

You might have to find yourself a powered external DVD Rewriter to resolve the issue.

[Helibeast]

Thanks Erico... the lights in the External DVD Driver come on  and it plays DVDs fine but not CDs.. why would that be a power issue to this external drive ?  Thanks