I have a HP Pavilion dv9500 which I've had for approximately 3 years. Recently, I've been having trouble with the CD/DVD Rom drive, and have tried numerous things to resolve it. A couple of days ago I was playing a PC game and then it cut out with an error message saying that no CD/DVD Rom drive was found. I deleted the upper and lower filters in the registry, uninstalled the driver and then re-installed it (as I thought it may be a hardware issue). Once I had done that, it seemed to work fine for a day or so, and then suddenly it happened again. The device does not appear in the device manager, nor in the "Computer" tab in the start menu. When I put a disk in, it sounds as though it tries to read the disc for about 10 seconds and then stops. However, when I scan for hardware changes in the device manager constantly for about 10 minutes it randomly appears and works OK for an hour or so. I hear it could be a loose cable maybe but I'm a complete dunce when it comes to opening up computers, I'd probably do more damage 
I can't afford to get it repaired professionaly. Please help!
I can't afford to get it repaired professionaly. Please help!