I'm very annoyed at myself for not being able to solve this one on my own. It is a little embarrassing for me as I'm the one who is supposed to 'know' and the one who generally fixes other people's computer problems!

All of a sudden my DVD / CD drive is not working and its presence in the device manager is marked with a yellow exclamation mark. Furthermore, I have a SanDisk USB memory stick drive which is behaving in exactly the same way when plugged in to any USB port. My usual recourse in such an event is to uninstall the device, scan for new hardware and install drivers - so easy - but it's NOT working!

Can anyone help me with my embarrassing problem

Hi
How about flashing BIOS and reseting CMOS battery.

Do you get any Device Manager Error Codes
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixthepro ... _codes.htm

try The Intel® Driver Update Utility
The Intel® Driver Update Utility keeps your system up-to-date. It detects which driver updates are relevant to your computer, and then helps you install them quickly and easily
http://www.intel.com/support/detect.htm?iid=dc_iduu

have you try to change the cables ?

For anyone who may have experienced a similar problem, the fix is here. It involves a fairly straightforward registry edit.....

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461