My thoughts, they might be too big/annoying for you, but just my thoughts. DON"T reformat a hard drive to get an optical drive to be recognized. Really, don't.

If you need help on a step or subject, ask.
First easy check, go to device manager (right-click on "My Computer" and go to properties). Are there yellow exclamation marks next to devices? If there are, that is something to fix. In "DVD/CD drives" are there any drives listed there?

Next, but pretty much same idea, right-click on "My Computer" and choose manage. There should be a disk management section. In it should show all drives (not just drive letters). Does an optical drive show up there. It might not have a drive letter, so look closely.

So if both those places don't have anything that looks like your optical drive, then try a reboot. A lot of computers might put a pretty start up screen in your face when you start up. You want to see the drives that the computer recognizes. So if there is a way to make that screen go away, do it. Maybe ESC, maybe space bar, not sure. It should show the C hard drive (SATA 1 - Western Digital 120S320 - 320 GB) (SATA 2 - Kingston 40N80S - 80 GB) (IDE 0/1 - Optica 80DVDWR - DVD), etc. That would let you know if the computer itself, not the OS, but the computer sees the optical drive.

Next if you aren't scared you can go into bios and see if it is disabled somehow. Not much I can be specific here, since lots of bios things are different and different ways to disable an item.

Next if you are tough, you can open the case (with computer turned off and powered off, not just in sleep), and disconnect and reconnect the optical cables. It shouldn't happen, but if a wierd signal got in there, it shouldn't hurt to just disconnect and reconnect the cables. Yeah, as you go farther and farther down, the things are going to sound more stupid and shouldn't happen, but better to be sure, then have to reinstall. They aren't that hard to do.

And probably last, do you have a spare optical drive. It can just be a CD reader. It doesn't have to be fancy, just same type of connector as the drive you have now. If you connect the spare drive (data and power), does it show up? If so, reconnect your old drive and if it doesn't show up, then probably the drive itself.

Just some things that might help. Good luck.