Has anyone (else) had DVD/CDRW dissapear from WinXP?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Silverstein
  • Start date Start date
M

Michael Silverstein

This one has me mystified. Let me start by saying that the problem just
appeared, ie. it was not coincident with any change to the hardware or to
WinXP (SP2). All of a sudden the DVD and CDRW drives (which used to be U:
and V:) are no longer recognized by WinXP. Details:

1. Both drives are recognized correctly in the BIOS, in the initial bootup
screen and in BIOS setup. No problem is indicated. The DVD/CDRW are on
second IDE channel as slave/master respectively. First channel has single
hard drive.

2. The BIOS will boot a (bootable) CD with no problem. The boot environment
(example: Recovery Console, also others) runs ok, and has no problem reading
either drive.

3. WinXP Device Manager correctly recognizes both drives and says "The
device is working properly".

4. WinXP Disk Manager does NOT recognize either drive (nor does Explorer or
any other program). Disk Manager Action|Rescan Disks and Action|Refresh do
not fix problem. Disk Manager sees only Disk 0, the hard drive.

5. I have tried disintalling both drives in Device Manager, then rebooting.
Coming back up "Found new hardware" correctly recognizes both drives. I have
also tried disabling/enabling both drives in Device Manager.

6. Here's one clue (at least I hope it's a clue), but I don't know what to
make of it. In Device Manager, I can open the Properties sheet, then click
the Properties tab. There is a check box labeled "Enable digital CD audio
for this CDROM drive". Checking this box and closing Properties causes a
yellow exclamation point on the drive in Device Manager, with the
explanation "Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware
but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)". Removing the check removes
the exclamation point. NOTE -- maybe this is irrelevant; maybe it is saying
my drive doesn't have digital audio hardware.

That's it. I think it is a WinXP problem because the BIOS and even Device
Manager see the drives, and because Recovery Console can see and read them
as drives E: and F:. So it does not seem to be hardware.

Any help greatly appreciated. Please note what I have already tried (in 5.).
Thanks, Mike

Michael Silverstein
Team Logic Co.
(e-mail address removed)
 
Anyone having this problem should look at Knowledge Base Article ID 320553.
It worked for me.
 
The same thing happened to me when I uninstalled Intervideo's Home
Theater evaluation verson. Nero CD Check fixed it on the next boot up
though. Now when I burn a CD or DVD the computer cannot be used for
anything else. I'm going to format and start again and this time NOT
install Home Theater.
 
This sometimes works :-

Start, Run, type regedit and navigate to registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
Highlight it and in the right pane, find the Upperfilters and
Lowerfilters values. Highlight each one in turn, right click and
delete them. Close regedit and restart the computer. If in doubt
backup the registry first (Win98) or make a restore point in WinME and
WinXP.

If the keys aren't present it is a different problem.
 
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