Invisable DVD drive

[Sabre]

This is the weirdest computer problem I have ever found in 8 years of IT teching.

My DVD drive has become inviable, device manager, everything, it's gone. The Bios picks it up and reports everything is hunky dorry. As far as my OS' are concerned, it's not there at all. Unfortunatly, I sort of need it to back up my last few files before I nuke my machine and start over.

Best guess is it's a driver issue, but I have no idea.

EDIT: Can exturnal Dvd drives be used for OS installs, just in case it's completly broked?

EDIT 2: I did a quick diagnosis on my raid, and both HDDs came back as 'healthy'. I think during the heatwave my DVD drive was cooked. Even though it appears in the bios, sometimes when I'm booking my bios returns a generic "There is something work with your hardware" warning, same as the overheat. Even so, my windows needs wiping clean anyway, and everything is backed up except for a few PS1 games and the complete series of gargoyles.

So, it's either hardware related, software, or both. If Im wrong but buy heardware, I could have wasted money, if I wipe the software and Im wrong, no working PC for me.

[Guest FoXXX]

You can install a OS using an external

install gentoo

[Jack Of Blades]

As far as I know, you can install OS thrue an USB..

[Sabre]

Thanks for the info.

I have decided to get a drive. Internal. Better money down the bog then no PC for a while.

UPDATE: definatly a hardware issue. My DVD drive disappeared from the bios today.