Laptop CD Drive help

[stthrobber]

Odd one this.

 

I have just bought a new laptop and wanted to recover/reformat the info on my old one before disposal, but for some reason, the CD/DVD drive does not show up on my computer at all, and it isn't in the hardware list in Device Manager. It won't open without my putting a pin into a small hole next to the button that normally opens the drive.

 

At a guess I would say that the drive was dead. I can't enable/disable it in the BIOS. I've tried the add hardware option but it didn't detect the drive

 

Does anyone have any ideas how I can reformat the hard drive. The machine does have USB capabilities but no floppy so I can't use an old Dos disk.

 

I don't particularly want to pay for a repair on a machine that I'm not going to use

[saint_stevo]

Sata/ide to USB cable and plug in the old hdd to any p.c and format?

 

Or put in an external drive?

 

Or easier option is to download and use this- http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-815-hdd-low-level-format-tool

 

Works on the fly

[stthrobber]

Sata/ide to USB cable and plug in the old hdd to any p.c and format?

 

Or put in an external drive?

 

Or easier option is to download and use this- http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-815-hdd-low-level-format-tool

 

Works on the fly

 

Thanks for the link mate. Just downloaded it and will run it tomorrow.