So for the past few weeks, the CD drive on my laptop has ceased to work. It does not show up in "My Computer" and it does not open when the button is pressed (although if I shove a paperclip into the manual drive open button, it will open).

I looked in the Device Manager, and I cannot find it there (although it may be there. Some of the IDE devices are pretty generic).

I looked on the website for drivers, and there are no drivers for the CD drive.

I've been playing around in BIOS disabling and re-enabling everything I can think of.. no effect.

It's an HP Compaq 6515b. Any ideas? The last thing I used it for was to install some Verizon software for my phone, which was in January, I think. No changes in hardware and no major changes in software since then.

Unfortunately, sometimes optical drives just die.

You can try removing and reinstalling it (physically take the drive out of the laptop, I mean) to see if maybe there was just a bad connection, but chances are if it isn't under warranty you'll just have to replace it. I'm pretty sure those drives follow a standard spec, and then whatever drive you buy would just have to be put in the mounting hardware for your specific laptop (so it's not like you have to specifically buy a "HP Compaq 6515b drive").

they will all usually fit, but the front bezel isn't always universal. you are best off getting one made for it.

and yeah, it sounds like the drive went bad.