Well I have a dying cd drive. I'm happily surfing on the internet when suddenly my pc freezes for a couple of seconds and then my cd and dvd drive dissappear from any detection my pc might have. First it was just my cd drive stopping at random times and not being accesible until a reb00t, but now it's both of them, always at the same time. I'm thinking it is a cable problem or so, because it's both at the same time and my dvd is new. I suspect the flat broad cable because it's the only one connected to both. Also, it isn't my power supply since that is brand new.

Any ideas?

Make sure the cable is fully plugged in, everywhere. Often it looks like it is, but is not. Also check the cable for any kinks or damage. You may have another one that came with your PC. If so, try it.

Another thing, I recently updated Quicktime, but now Quicktime has taken over ALL the flash objects in firefox, but ofcourse cannot play them, I get the 'quicktime has failed' icon over EVERY flash object in firefox browser... What to do? :'(

<font color=8fbc8f>Your symptom falls into a two problem approach.
First and foremost:
1. Check and clean both drives at BOTH the power supply, and IDE cable plug-ins. And while your there check to make sure one is master, and one is slave on the DIP panel.
*FYI: Bad IDE will cause the system to freeze or slowdown on boot up as the POST is searching for components plugged in. Bad or interrupted power will cause the component to drop of the peripherals list under the OS.

2. Check and gently clean the MB where the IDE cable plugs into it.

Second:
1. Swap the IDE cable.

Couple more things to do: I'm assuming widoze OS?
1. When it fails again, go into system resources, and look to see if your drives are dropped there. If not, how many and what color are the attention icons?

2. You might have to do a PS test. Try different configuartions of plugging the leads into different components until you either:
A) Find the faulty lead.
B) Find that the PS is not the problem at all.
Then refer back to swapping the IDE cable.

Lastly, it could be dust, or loose connection causing this entire situation. (Been there, done that!) :D </font>