DVD not acessable after system recovery

A while back I had to recover my HP dv9723d laptop using the HP restore partition on the hard drive. The machine is running Win Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2. Everything went well with the restore, or so I thought, and I attempted to reload all my programs. It was then I found the DVD recorder/player would not work (It worked fine before the restore). It would not even energize to open the drawer. Two more restores and the same results. I did notice the drawer would open if I pushed the eject button as the machine booted but before Windows loaded. I removed the drive, cleaned the contacts, and reinstalled the drive. Same results. I considered the drive was bad and ordered a replacement from HP. One hundred dollars later and the same results. I have a very nice laptop which does everything I ask it to do, except the DVD drive is inoperatable. What am I missing. The drive does not show in the Device Manager:

Could there be some rouge registry entry which is preventing Windows from recognizing the DVD drive? I have all but given up that the DVD drive will again be useful. In the meantime I was able to reload my programs via my home network and am using the laptop (sans DVD drive) as I am now typing this on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,

 

Sounds like another bad DVD. Did the original one show in the Device Manager?