My cd drives are working, spinning the disks, opening and closing. But they don't show up in 'my computer' or anywhere. I can't play any music or dvd's and in programs that play it, the drives aren't even listed on the pull down menu. It's like they don't exist.
You don't need to remove the drive. All you need to do is unplug the power cable. You can unplug the IDE cable too if you want to, but you don't need to. The PC can't see anything that doesn't have power.
If the drive opens and closes it has power. Check the IDE cable, its the wide grey cable connected to the drive. Also make sure the other end of the cable is connected to the motherboard.