Aspire One will not recognize external cd drive

[SemBruin]

Help please. I have an Acer Aspire One and am trying to use an Acer external CD drive (with USB connection) and computer is not recognizing the CD. I tried the CD drive on another computer and it worked just fine. Help Please! Thanks!

 

[burdenbound]

Does the cd drive come with drivers that need to be installed first? Have you verified that the USB port you are using is working correctly?

 

[SemBruin]

Does the cd drive come with drivers that need to be installed first? Have you verified that the USB port you are using is working correctly?

Yes, the USB is working properly and I have four actually and have tried all four. When I plugged the CD into my other laptop the other laptop installed the drivers automatically. On the Acer, I see the CD green light flash and I see the cursor on the computer respond and that's it. I have searched the disk management area (I read that on another comment) and the Acer seems to simply not recognize the cd driver. I am on Windows 8 on this machine - could that be problem? Thanks!

 

[burdenbound]

Does the cd drive come with drivers that need to be installed first? Have you verified that the USB port you are using is working correctly?

Yes, the USB is working properly and I have four actually and have tried all four. When I plugged the CD into my other laptop the other laptop installed the drivers automatically. On the Acer, I see the CD green light flash and I see the cursor on the computer respond and that's it. I have searched the disk management area (I read that on another comment) and the Acer seems to simply not recognize the cd driver. I am on Windows 8 on this machine - could that be problem? Thanks!

I would think if it worked automatically on an earlier version of windows that windows 8 would pick it up just fine. I would look on the manufacturers website and find the drivers which your other computer was able to download and install automatically because it seems that part is not currently happening.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Are you sure that is JUST a CD drive (not DVD)? That does make a difference, and yes it may be incompatible with Windows 8 (especially if it is just a CD drive). Look up the model on Acer of the Drive and see if it is Win8 Compatible or not. If it is that old (CD) they may not support it, hence Windows 8 is looking at you like "what is that?" and that may be the problem.

 

[SemBruin]

Are you sure that is JUST a CD drive (not DVD)? That does make a difference, and yes it may be incompatible with Windows 8 (especially if it is just a CD drive). Look up the model on Acer of the Drive and see if it is Win8 Compatible or not. If it is that old (CD) they may not support it, hence Windows 8 is looking at you like "what is that?" and that may be the problem.

Thanks Tom! In the process of trying to figure out I got it to work! I find Windows 8 tough to use so I'm not sure. It is a combo cd/DVD and I wasn't clear if it was compatible. However, the cd has two connectors which seem to USB and the computer has four USB (like?) connectors and I may have just randomly hit upon the right combination but as I was on the control panel looking at adding devices all of sudden there the cd was! Yikes!