Okay, so after a quick online chat with Gateway support, they said that it might not be the cd drive or its driver, but the registry that got hosed, which makes sense to me, due to the following:
--I'd done a registry cleanup a few days previous to this problem
--The Device Manager is showing all is well, driver and drive-wise.
--After rebooting the PC successfully, everything's running okay *EXCEPT* the drive.
--Chances are I may have also hosed the registry during one of the hard reboots.
So! This means that a System restore (a good time back might be good, just to distance myself from the problem), and, failing that, following the directions on a link they sent me that might fix the registry.
And barring that, I guess I might have to bite the bullet and get more support on this. Luckily I'm still under warranty, so that's a good thing.
But for now? Even though all those tasty new cds are glaring at me, I'll be staying with a streamed station for the rest of the week. I've wasted too much time on this and list writing time, and I gotta get work done.
So...things are looking up, hopefully. :)
--I'd done a registry cleanup a few days previous to this problem
--The Device Manager is showing all is well, driver and drive-wise.
--After rebooting the PC successfully, everything's running okay *EXCEPT* the drive.
--Chances are I may have also hosed the registry during one of the hard reboots.
So! This means that a System restore (a good time back might be good, just to distance myself from the problem), and, failing that, following the directions on a link they sent me that might fix the registry.
And barring that, I guess I might have to bite the bullet and get more support on this. Luckily I'm still under warranty, so that's a good thing.
But for now? Even though all those tasty new cds are glaring at me, I'll be staying with a streamed station for the rest of the week. I've wasted too much time on this and list writing time, and I gotta get work done.
So...things are looking up, hopefully. :)