Missing optical drives

[rkariff]

For some unknown reason, I can't rip DVDs. I get the message:

The program can't find any usable optical drives.

Any suggestions?

[Woodstock]

MakeMKV asks at the start, "Which drives are potential places an optical disk can be found?"

If the operating system says there are none, MakeMKV reports that.

The question becomes, "why is the operating system saying there isn't an optical drive?"

Have you reset the system since this started happening? Sometimes the hardware itself decides to become invisible, either through a glitch in its firmware or in the motherboard's hardware. USB drives can often be unplugged and replugged to become visible again, but internal drives are reset when the rest of the system is.