CD and DVD Drives Missing in Explorer

[mortsfive]

I am running Windows 2k Pro. with all the updates installed. My
processor is an AMD Athlon 3700 (64 bit). I have 1 GB of memory
installed and I have nearly 1000 GB of disk space.

I recently installed a new version of Nero OEM and when I tried to run
the program to copy a DVD it failed. I found from other newsgroups
that this is an inherent problem with the new software so I
uninstalled it and reinstalled the older Nero software that had worked
earlier.

When I tried to run the old Nero package I got a message that it was
"Unable to activate WnASPI32.dll" and the CD and DVD drives weren't
seen by Nero. I went to Adaptec's website and downloaded the latest
ASPI driver package and updated my system. I also downloaded a fresh
copy of WnASPI32.dll from Nero and installed it. None of this fixed
my problem.

I completely uninstalled Nero from my system again thinking that maybe
the earlier installation had gone wrong. Then I reinstalled the
original Nero again. The drives still did not work. Next I
uninstalled Intervideo WinDVD Suite and all its components.

The two physical drives and one virtual DVD drive show up in Windows
Device Manager and no problems are indicated. The drive also show up
in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Removable Storage but have
red Xs on them and are shown as Not Present in the "State" column. I
even checked TweakUI and on the My Computer Tab the drives are
checked.

I ran JV16 to clean my registry and it found and removed a number of
leftover items from Intervideo WinDVD but that didn't fix the problem.

None of the CD drives are shown in Windows Explorer and neither
physical drive will autorun a CD or DVD.

I found a fix for this problem on the Aumha website but unfortunately
it applies to XP only. If anyone has an idea as to what to do to fix
this problem please let me know.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Cecil Britton
(e-mail address removed)

 

[David Webb]

Check your registry for the presence of the Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values
noted in the following tech article and if present, remove them.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270008/

| I am running Windows 2k Pro. with all the updates installed. My
| processor is an AMD Athlon 3700 (64 bit). I have 1 GB of memory
| installed and I have nearly 1000 GB of disk space.
|
| I recently installed a new version of Nero OEM and when I tried to run
| the program to copy a DVD it failed. I found from other newsgroups
| that this is an inherent problem with the new software so I
| uninstalled it and reinstalled the older Nero software that had worked
| earlier.
|
| When I tried to run the old Nero package I got a message that it was
| "Unable to activate WnASPI32.dll" and the CD and DVD drives weren't
| seen by Nero. I went to Adaptec's website and downloaded the latest
| ASPI driver package and updated my system. I also downloaded a fresh
| copy of WnASPI32.dll from Nero and installed it. None of this fixed
| my problem.
|
| I completely uninstalled Nero from my system again thinking that maybe
| the earlier installation had gone wrong. Then I reinstalled the
| original Nero again. The drives still did not work. Next I
| uninstalled Intervideo WinDVD Suite and all its components.
|
| The two physical drives and one virtual DVD drive show up in Windows
| Device Manager and no problems are indicated. The drive also show up
| in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Removable Storage but have
| red Xs on them and are shown as Not Present in the "State" column. I
| even checked TweakUI and on the My Computer Tab the drives are
| checked.
|
| I ran JV16 to clean my registry and it found and removed a number of
| leftover items from Intervideo WinDVD but that didn't fix the problem.
|
| None of the CD drives are shown in Windows Explorer and neither
| physical drive will autorun a CD or DVD.
|
| I found a fix for this problem on the Aumha website but unfortunately
| it applies to XP only. If anyone has an idea as to what to do to fix
| this problem please let me know.
|
| Thanks in advance for your assistance.
|
| Cecil Britton
| (e-mail address removed)

 

[Frank Booth Snr]

I am running Windows 2k Pro. with all the updates installed. My
processor is an AMD Athlon 3700 (64 bit). I have 1 GB of memory
installed and I have nearly 1000 GB of disk space.

I recently installed a new version of Nero OEM and when I tried to run
the program to copy a DVD it failed. I found from other newsgroups
that this is an inherent problem with the new software so I
uninstalled it and reinstalled the older Nero software that had worked
earlier.

When I tried to run the old Nero package I got a message that it was
"Unable to activate WnASPI32.dll" and the CD and DVD drives weren't
seen by Nero. I went to Adaptec's website and downloaded the latest
ASPI driver package and updated my system. I also downloaded a fresh
copy of WnASPI32.dll from Nero and installed it. None of this fixed
my problem.

I completely uninstalled Nero from my system again thinking that maybe
the earlier installation had gone wrong. Then I reinstalled the
original Nero again. The drives still did not work. Next I
uninstalled Intervideo WinDVD Suite and all its components.

The two physical drives and one virtual DVD drive show up in Windows
Device Manager and no problems are indicated. The drive also show up
in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Removable Storage but have
red Xs on them and are shown as Not Present in the "State" column. I
even checked TweakUI and on the My Computer Tab the drives are
checked.

I ran JV16 to clean my registry and it found and removed a number of
leftover items from Intervideo WinDVD but that didn't fix the problem.

None of the CD drives are shown in Windows Explorer and neither
physical drive will autorun a CD or DVD.

I found a fix for this problem on the Aumha website but unfortunately
it applies to XP only. If anyone has an idea as to what to do to fix
this problem please let me know.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

It's not a good idea to use these 'registry fix/cleanup' programs, as
many users' experiences is that they cause more problems than they cure.
If neither of your optical drives are seen in Explorer, they shouldn't
run anything let alone autorun, as Win doesn't recognise them. Win2k
provides sufficent drivers to run any well known brand of optical drive,
so these may well have been corrupted or removed since. First of all,
have you checked whether both drives are seen correctly in your CMOS?
(normally F2 button while booting to POST). If that checks out ok, you
should then boot from your Win2k system disk, and try for a repair to
the system.

 

[Mort Snerd]

Thanks for your concern about the registry cleaner. Actually I have
been using this program for many years and I have never experienced
any problems with it. I do agree that there are many cheap programs
out there that can cause problems, particularly in the hands of people
who don't know what they are doing to begin with.

I had already tried to do a system file check by booting from the
system CD and doing a system repair. It didn't help at all.

I also removed the Upperfilter and Lowerfilter entries in Registry
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
Key Name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Actually I did this
before posting my original message but to be on the safe side I went
back and did it again just in case I hadn't done it right the first
time. According to Microsoft this fix is related to a faulty
uninstall of a Roxio product and it causes an error code to be
generated in Device Manager. None of that applies to my situation
anyway.

I have since loaded a registry backup that I made on June 4, 2006
using Erunt and found that it didn't fix the problem either. Now I am
sure that the problem is not registry related.

I have a drive image I made on 5/27/06 using Acronis and I am about
to use it to restore the C drive to its state at that time. Hopefully
that will remedy the problem.