D: Drive Not detected, Cannot install driver on an undetected drive  

So I'm at my parent's house this weekend and I go to load a program on their computer. Auto play didn't run the disc so I went to My Computer to manually run it, however there is no D: Drive shown.

I went to system properties-Disk Drives and there was the warning sign next to the D drive (yellow !). I uninstalled that driver and rebooted, under the assumption Windows 7 would automatically install the driver again, however that didn't work. I went to Asus support drivers and downloaded the DRW-24B1ST driver, extracted and attempted to install, however I received

Error: No matched drive detected. This utility is only for Asus DRW-24B1ST only.
Detected Drives: (Blank)

So my question is how do I get windows to recognize this drive so I can apply the driver for it. The Drive is hooked up internally, and it still opens and closes on command. I've rebooted a couple times in hopes a fix would somehow present itself, but no luck as of yet.

Also the drive isn't listed at all anymore in device managers.

Thanks for your responses ahead of time

first try booting into BIOS to see if drive is recognized there-if not--then you can try opening the machine--clean dust from inside--disconnect and reconnect both cables---then see if drive is recognized---or drive 'could' be bad.
note: just because it opens, doesn't mean it functions

Okay I got into Bios and I'm assuming it would be under Disk Drives, and only 2 were listed, the same 2 that are in the device manager (except the printer and removable USB). I unplugged the drive from SATA and Power, booted the comp, then shut down, plugged the sata and power back in, booted once more and still nothing was being read in the Device Manager.

Ran the new hardware check after reboot and still nothing was shown.

If I was in the correct location in BIOS and it wasn't listed, is this a likely dead drive? I'm more software than hardware, so if I wanted to check it's function ability and plug it into another (older) computer, would I just unscrew the 2 screws on each side and slide it out? Leave the same cables in the newer computer and use the SATA/Power cables from the older one to run a test?

Also if I wanted could I unplug an even OLDER drive in the basement and test it w/ the new computer?

it should have been listed in the drives section of the BIOS.
if it doesn't show in the BIOS...the drive is probably bad and needs replacing...or there is a bad connection--was the computer recently moved, dropped, jostled?

yes you can plug it into another machine (using the process you described) and yes you can put an older drive in the newer machine (drivers might be an issue either way-but windows should install a generic driver on boot up)

a new DVD drive is only about $25

awesome Tman, you've been a big help. Looks like it's a dead drive after all, even though the computer has not been moved since it's been purchased. Again, thanks for the help