Windows Media Player doesn;t see my DVD/RW as present

[MeldrewsMate]

I have a 5 years old HP laptop running Vista. The hardware is as supplied when new.
I recently tried to write a playlist to a CDR but when in the rip tab of WMP I got the message "A CD drive is needed in order to rip music from CDs".

In My Computer I can read files from a cd rom, but when I try to burn files nothing happens. In the tab TOOLS>OPTIONS>DEVICES only the speakers and display appear to be installed, and I don't see a way to install or reinstall my DVD drive.

I have both ripped music and burned CDs from Media Player before.
What settings can I check and change to allow WMP to recognise the DVD/RW drive?

 

[CylonRaider]

I'd use VLC

Well actually I use K3B but that's no use to a Windows user so VLC it is !

 

[MeldrewsMate]

Strangely enough I rebooted my laptop this evening, and now the TOOLS>OPTIONS>DEVICES tab shows the CD writer to be present...

...very bizarre.

Cylon, thanks for the reply, but I'm a believer in leaving well alone unless there's a good reason to change. WMP rips to MP3 and writes to disc. Unless VLC can convert my early WMA files to MP3 (so that all my music files are in the same format - car player can only play MP3) then there's no good reason to change.