I've had this computer for probably, a year or two now. I got it used, person said the CD player didn't work. Yesterday, I went to get another, used of craigslist. Tested it and it worked. When I got home, I plugged it into my PC, booted it up and it still didn't notice it. It's an old Lenovo ThinkCentre A75 and it's running Windows 10.
Is there anything I should try?
Drivers for optical drives are native to Windows. If the OS recognizes the drive, it works. If the OS doesn't recognize the drive, it doesn't work. And it's just that simple. Why are you fiddling with used drives, they are dirt cheap?
Considering that I have had a couple SATA cables go bad on me, it could be something real simple. It could be the SATA port on the motherboard or it could be the SATA power connector is bad.
You would have to try with different cables and try another SATA port before you can rule out the CD drive.
I've had quite a few CD drives go bad on me as well. It's a good thing they cost $15 new on amazon. The last time I bought one was back in 2012. Since then, I either use an external CD drive or a thumbdrive if I have to install software.
Perhaps you should buy some more used garbage from craigslist. Right now Amazon has NEW LG DVD drives for 14 bucks.
Try defaulting your bios so it runs a ide configuration.
Cd a dvd are pretty much universal if you plug them in right they should pick right up