Disabled CD-Rom, DVD and Floppy "Administrator has restricted acce

[Guest]

I started getting this message/alert at login stating "the administrator has
restricted access to the CD and DVD drives". And sure enough, if you go to
My Computer there are red "no" symbols (circles with a slash) over the CD,
DVD and floppy drives. I can put in a CD and the drive spins up and the
cursor even changes to indicate it's being accessed - but I can't do anything
else.

I haven't changed anything that I am aware of. There are two users and we
are both administrators. The same effect is on both accounts. Automatic
Updates is on.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Verify that the Restrict CD-ROM access to locally logged on user only option is not turned on.

a. Click Start, click Run, in the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
b. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

c. In the right pane, under Data, if the value for allocatecdroms is 0, go to step 5.
d. In the right pane, under Data, if the value for allocatecdroms is 1, right-click allocatecdroms, and then click Modify.
e. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
f. Quit Registry Editor.

The above is excerpted from the following MS-KB article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330135
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I started getting this message/alert at login stating "the administrator has
restricted access to the CD and DVD drives". And sure enough, if you go to
My Computer there are red "no" symbols (circles with a slash) over the CD,
DVD and floppy drives. I can put in a CD and the drive spins up and the
cursor even changes to indicate it's being accessed - but I can't do anything
else.

I haven't changed anything that I am aware of. There are two users and we
are both administrators. The same effect is on both accounts. Automatic
Updates is on.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Ramesh.

I had already checked that the Security Setting to Restrict CD-ROM access
was diabled.

I checked the registry as you indicated and "allocatecdroms" is 0. So is
the one for "allocatefloppies".

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Brad,

What happens when you right-click on the CD drive and choose "open". Are the contents displayed correctly?

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks Ramesh.

I had already checked that the Security Setting to Restrict CD-ROM access
was diabled.

I checked the registry as you indicated and "allocatecdroms" is 0. So is
the one for "allocatefloppies".

 

[Guest]

Ramesh,

I found by searching the web that there were others who had this problem.
It seems that the Intel "Desktop Utilities" that comes with their
motherboards has a glitch that leads to this - not sure how. I removed the
program, and the drives are working correctly. Only now - the icons for the
drives are gone! Who knows how to fix that?

Anyhow, I appreciate your help. I just happened across the issue with
Desktop Utilities, and I have no idea what causes it to do this. I installed
it to monitor the temperature of the processor in this new computer I built
using the Intel 975X board. Everything has been awesome for about 6 months -
then this popped up.

Thanks again for your help,
Brad

Brad,

What happens when you right-click on the CD drive and choose "open". Are the contents displayed correctly?

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks Ramesh.

I had already checked that the Security Setting to Restrict CD-ROM access
was diabled.

I checked the registry as you indicated and "allocatecdroms" is 0. So is
the one for "allocatefloppies".

Verify that the Restrict CD-ROM access to locally logged on user only option is not turned on.

a. Click Start, click Run, in the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
b. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

c. In the right pane, under Data, if the value for allocatecdroms is 0, go to step 5.
d. In the right pane, under Data, if the value for allocatecdroms is 1, right-click allocatecdroms, and then click Modify.
e. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
f. Quit Registry Editor.

The above is excerpted from the following MS-KB article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330135
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Brad,

See if the section "Resetting the drive icon settings in the registry" in the following article helps:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/driveicon.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh,

I found by searching the web that there were others who had this problem.
It seems that the Intel "Desktop Utilities" that comes with their
motherboards has a glitch that leads to this - not sure how. I removed the
program, and the drives are working correctly. Only now - the icons for the
drives are gone! Who knows how to fix that?

Anyhow, I appreciate your help. I just happened across the issue with
Desktop Utilities, and I have no idea what causes it to do this. I installed
it to monitor the temperature of the processor in this new computer I built
using the Intel 975X board. Everything has been awesome for about 6 months -
then this popped up.

Thanks again for your help,
Brad

:

 

[Guest]

Ramesh:

Yes - that worked to restore the icons.

Thank you very much for your help,
Brad

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You're welcome, Brad.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh:

Yes - that worked to restore the icons.

Thank you very much for your help,
Brad

 

[laurenlion]

You're welcome, Brad.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshootinghttp://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh:

Yes - that worked to restore the icons.

Thank you very much for your help,
Brad

Brad,

See if the section "Resetting the drive icon settings in the registry" in the following article helps:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/driveicon.htm

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshootinghttp://www.winhelponline.com- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I also have this problem. I have tried all of the suggested
solutions, and my drives are still not available. The CDROM drive has
the red "unaccessable" indicator on it. I deinstalled and reinstalled
it, and that did not work either. I cannot access it at all. This
all started happening on 3/2/07, a day in which a Microsoft standard
update included the following items.

4:33:23 pm Software Distribution Service 2.0
4:32:33 pm Installed Windows Defender
4:26:33 pm Software Distribution Service 2.0

I have also deinstalled Windows Defender
I also tried to restore to a piont prior to all of this, and the
system says there are no changes to restore to.

Please help.
Lauren

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Lauren,

This is what Brad posted:

<q>
It seems that the Intel "Desktop Utilities" that comes with their motherboards has a glitch that leads to this - not sure how. I removed the program, and the drives are working correctly.
</q>

Any chance that you installed this program earlier?

If not, check Device Manager for the CD drive status. Do you see any error codes there?

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com

You're welcome, Brad.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshootinghttp://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh:

Yes - that worked to restore the icons.

Thank you very much for your help,
Brad

Brad,

See if the section "Resetting the drive icon settings in the registry" in the following article helps:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/driveicon.htm

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshootinghttp://www.winhelponline.com- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I also have this problem. I have tried all of the suggested
solutions, and my drives are still not available. The CDROM drive has
the red "unaccessable" indicator on it. I deinstalled and reinstalled
it, and that did not work either. I cannot access it at all. This
all started happening on 3/2/07, a day in which a Microsoft standard
update included the following items.

4:33:23 pm Software Distribution Service 2.0
4:32:33 pm Installed Windows Defender
4:26:33 pm Software Distribution Service 2.0

I have also deinstalled Windows Defender
I also tried to restore to a piont prior to all of this, and the
system says there are no changes to restore to.

Please help.
Lauren