I have a Dell laptop with 20.04.3 LTS installed. It doesn't contain a DVD drive but has USB 3.0 ports. My wife needs to be able to play DVDs so I purchased a new Dell DW514 external DVD drive. From the copyright on the quick start guide it looks like it was manufactured around 2013 which is after USB 3.0 started being used. I've tried doing a hot plug or booting up with it plugged in and it doesn't show up in the list of devices when using hardinfo in Terminal. Has anyone else had trouble trying to use external DVD drives with Ubuntu? Do I need to find one specifically designed for Linux?
Hello linuxis4me
Simple question - have you tried inserting a DVD or CD when the drive is connected (I ask because you did not specifically mention this). 
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Ha ha, I discovered by myself that all I needed to do was insert the media after I had racked my brain for a couple of hours. I was too tired and it was too late for me to delete or edit my post at the time. I figured I'd take care of it this morning. Thanks alpinejohn for offering the ridiculously simple solution to my problem.
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