computer not recognising drives

[Binoculars]

I have a friend whose computer has suddenly stopped recognising her CD drives. It's a Celeron 600 desktop running W98 SE. It has a CDROM and a CD-RW drive, but suddenly neither My Computer nor device manager betrays a hint of seeing they exist. On the law of averages a simultaneous double failure seems unlikely, as does the possibiity of cables, leads etc falling out simultaneously. Is there something obvious I should check before I go poking around inside?

[ORAC]

Check the BIOS to see if the motherboard can see the drives. If it can´t it is almost certainly either a cable fault. (I would have added a BIOS or battery fault, but that would have lost the HDD as well). If so, the two drives will probably be on the same cable. Reseat or replace.

If the BIOS can see the drives, but Windows cannot, it is a Windows fault. This is more difficult. There is no way to force Windows to see an IDE drive. They can vanish because of viruses, bad drivers, protection software such as Sony´s root kit. To be honest, if it is Windows, it usually ends up easier to reformat and reinstall the OS

[Saab Dastard]

cables, leads etc falling out simultaneously

- there may only be one cable involved, if they are both on the same, secondary IDE channel.

SD