DVD Drive TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653A

I am having some wha of the same issue here. I re-formated my HDD and re installed windows Vista with the CD procided by Dell. All went fine but my TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653A is not working. Is not working in the sense that is not "there" when i open My Computer. When i put in a CD or DVD it does not read it . It does come up on the Set Up and i checked the cables in the back and they are all connected properly. Help please ?

Have you tried looking for updated drivers on the support site? also Ihave a similar issue when my raid drivers dont install correctly.
Sounds more like a driver issue than a hardware failure.

I believe it is a driver issue aswell. All the cables are in order and it comes up in the Set Up menu. It only points towards the drivers, when i download the latest one off the Dell Website, it does not even find it. But, i did noticed i purchased this pc in '07 and the driver that Dell offers is 08-09 ( not to sure), point is that the driver is new. Is there a way i can come by the old driver? Does Toshiba offer support for these Dvd Drives? 

Well I can't see the drive on their ODD site, only the TS-H653E and it doesnt look like they do  firmware but thats just from a very quick look, google samsung odd and you will get their optical disc drive site.

As for firmware if you google toshiba samsung im afraid 90% of your results will be people trying to flash their Xbox drives or copy games.

Maybe the best people to contact for help on the issue is dell who may still have the original disks to send out, they usually do it once as an exception as they have done it for me when i was given my PC by a friend they didnt know where the drivers were so i called them (PC being out of warranty too) and they sent out some new ones.

Besides that grab yourself a new drive, they retail at around £18-£22 and personally i'd go for a Sony NEC Optaric DVD -+RW I've used them for years and never had a single one go wrong on me.

That is ofcourse if this is a drive related issue with you not being able to get drivers its a brick.

Can someone please post a link for the '07 or older driver for this drive? It was working for me then. When i formated my computer and re-installed Windows Vista and then i tried to install the new driver Dell released...it does not work. Can anyone post a link to the old one please?

I am having a very similar problem. I somehow damaged or unistalled the driver for the TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653A drive and now I cannot use it at all, that means it doesn't read any discs nor appears in My Computer. All connections are ok. When I go to "add hardware" in Control Panel I can see the drive but I cannot use it nor install it because it says that the driver is either damaged or absent. I then looked for the driver in the Drivers and Downloads section of Dell's website and found it, however it comes with something like a 'Flash Dowloader' that when I use (following the instructions on the ReadMe file) says "DRIVE NOT FOUND" and stops there.

Any ideas? I really need your help.

Thank you very much

This is because that driver is faulty or can only flash the drive. I ask that dell provide a link to the '07 driver. This was is fully functional and it will work. I have no idea why they would realease a faulty driver, but i ask that you please release the older driver.

Hi, Env90:

There is no "07 driver" for your DVD drive. All optical drives use the same generic driver in Vista. It sounds like your drive is just missing, right?

You said your drive is not visible in System Setup. Is that correct?

Yes, i know the drive works. It is detected in SetUp before the OS boots. So i know it is working and it worked before the format because i made back ups. It is just not "there" or as if it never existed on My Computer, Add Hardware, etc. 

My DVD drive is also "missing" When you go to Computer it is not there! Worked originally when I got the system a few weeks ago. WHat happened? I can use a floppy drive via USB and it works great. Any ideas?

Ok, I misunderstood.

Here's what you need to do. Go to the CD/DVD FAQ and follow the instructions under "code 39 error". That works for missing drives.

You should be all set after that.

Ok thank you, i will try this and see if it helps my issue.

One more thing, would you mind posting a link to the FAQ here please? I have looked just about everywhere.

I AM HAVING THE SAME PROB. Coudl you please tell me how you fixed this. I have been working all night and am very pee'd at dell. And I dotn want to have to pay to get thie fixed. I knew I shoudl not have updated vista. This has happened before. But usually Dell drivers are not so hard to download.

Please help

Thank you