First question is whether you may have played one of the recently issued Sony "DRM protected" CDs. Two separate recent issues of Sony CDs have included Digital Rights Management software that can replace the drivers - and playback programs - on your machine with Sony's own programs. Removal of the Sony Scumware, or of anything else using their substituted drivers, often disables CD and DVD drives.

The program you removed may have made a similar driver replacement, and removal of the program may have removed drivers for the device(s). Any "multimedia" program has to be suspected of including "features" that are not obvious.

The normal procedure for a "disappearing" device is to open control panel, Device Manager, and see if the device appears. If you right click on "My Computer" in Windows Explorer, and click "Properties" there should be a "Hardware" tab where "Device Manager" can be opened, if you're using a recent Win version.

You can also use the Control Panel|Add Hardware entry, but Device Manager is a little more efficient.

If the drive is shown, but has a "malfunction/disconnected" logo attached, it means that the computer knows its there and that it isn't operating. It may also show the device and say it's working properly, when you know it isn't working.

If the drive is listed in Device Manager, you can double click on it, and look at whether a driver is installed and turned on. In recent Win versions there's a troubleshoot button, and/or you can use the "update driver" etc to get things turned back on.

The procedure is essentially the same in all cases. You DELETE the device and/or its driver, reboot and let Windows find the device and install a new driver - or ask you for a driver if it doesn't have one handy. Assuming it's a plug and play device, this usually will restore it. Note: you should have a driver file handy, and/or your Windows Installation disk(s).

If the device does NOT APPEAR in Device Manager, you can force Windows to do a search for it. Click on the CD/DVD Drives, click the "Action" button at the top and tell Windows to search for new hardware.

If Windows can't find the device it probably means the hardware has stopped working and you'll need a replacement drive. If you have sufficient information on the device type etc., you can force an installation of a device that Windows can't find on its own, but that's unlikely to help unless you know that your device is old enough to be a non-plug-and-play compatible one. If it didn't come with Win98 or earlier, that's unlikely, but not impossible.

John