Windows Explorer cannot see music or data discs loaded into.........

[TerryS]

Windows Explorer cannot see music or data discs loaded into either the
DVD/CD-RW drive or the DVD-RAM drive.

This is after some reorganising and resizing of the partitions on my systems
two hard drives, and reassignment of drive letters to disc and partition
sequence.
That is: SATA HDD with Primary C:, Logicals D:\, E:\ and F:\
IDE HDD with Logicals G:\, H:\ and I:\
DVD/CD-RW is J:\
DVD-RAM is K:\
Windows (XP Home S/Pack 2) Disk Management recognises all disks, partitions
and their individual details. This includes the two ROM drives and their
loaded discs and shows all as healthy.

The Windows 'System Properties/Hardware/Device Manager' recognises the Rom
devices and shows them in working order.

Media players open and see audio files and play them.

I have gone through the processes of uninstalling ROM drivers/Bootup/ new
hardware recognition/driver reinstall Bootup.

It may be significant to mention that there is no spin up when the discs are
inserted.

It seems Windows Explorer is the only part of the system that can't see the
inserted media and data discs on drives J:\ and K:\.
Any further advice or links to tech pages would be appreciated.

Cheers,
TerryS.

 

[Sharon F]

Windows Explorer cannot see music or data discs loaded into either the
DVD/CD-RW drive or the DVD-RAM drive.

This is after some reorganising and resizing of the partitions on my systems
two hard drives, and reassignment of drive letters to disc and partition
sequence.
That is: SATA HDD with Primary C:, Logicals D:\, E:\ and F:\
IDE HDD with Logicals G:\, H:\ and I:\
DVD/CD-RW is J:\
DVD-RAM is K:\
Windows (XP Home S/Pack 2) Disk Management recognises all disks, partitions
and their individual details. This includes the two ROM drives and their
loaded discs and shows all as healthy.

The Windows 'System Properties/Hardware/Device Manager' recognises the Rom
devices and shows them in working order.

Media players open and see audio files and play them.

I have gone through the processes of uninstalling ROM drivers/Bootup/ new
hardware recognition/driver reinstall Bootup.

It may be significant to mention that there is no spin up when the discs are
inserted.

It seems Windows Explorer is the only part of the system that can't see the
inserted media and data discs on drives J:\ and K:\.
Any further advice or links to tech pages would be appreciated.

Cheers,
TerryS.

Since disk management sees them and assigns them letters... they should be
showing in Explorer and My Computer too. That's just how Windows works.
Have you ever used TweakUI for XP or similar to hide unused drive letters?
A tweak tool is capable of hiding drive letters. Using the tool to unhide
the drives places them back into Explorer.

 

[TerryS]

Since disk management sees them and assigns them letters... they should be
showing in Explorer and My Computer too. That's just how Windows works.
Have you ever used TweakUI for XP or similar to hide unused drive letters?
A tweak tool is capable of hiding drive letters. Using the tool to unhide
the drives places them back into Explorer.

I agree with the logic of your first and second sentences.......my normally
well behaved system prefers to differ.
No.....I have never used TweakUI for XP, yes.....I do have a similar
program.
I have no recollection of any tweaks for drive letters, but you do give me
food for thought and a few more avenues to check out.

Windows Explorer still sees either of the ROM drives as empty (Please insert
a disc into drive * :\ .....) after discs have been inserted.
There is no initial spin up for disc reading.
But, if I reboot the system with the inserted discs still in the drives,
there is read info spin up, then the discs and their contents appear in the
expanded Windows Explorer directory tree and are accessible as normal.
If the inserted discs are removed and replaced with different
ones..........Windows Explorer once again sees the drives as empty but the
directory tree retains all the info relating to the original discs till
another reboot.

Every other relevant program or utility on the system sees the ROM drives
and their content as normal. Imaging, audio, copy and burn all work fine.

Thanks for the reply post,
TerryS.

 

[Sharon F]

I agree with the logic of your first and second sentences.......my normally
well behaved system prefers to differ.
No.....I have never used TweakUI for XP, yes.....I do have a similar
program.
I have no recollection of any tweaks for drive letters, but you do give me
food for thought and a few more avenues to check out.

Windows Explorer still sees either of the ROM drives as empty (Please insert
a disc into drive * :\ .....) after discs have been inserted.
There is no initial spin up for disc reading.
But, if I reboot the system with the inserted discs still in the drives,
there is read info spin up, then the discs and their contents appear in the
expanded Windows Explorer directory tree and are accessible as normal.
If the inserted discs are removed and replaced with different
ones..........Windows Explorer once again sees the drives as empty but the
directory tree retains all the info relating to the original discs till
another reboot.

Every other relevant program or utility on the system sees the ROM drives
and their content as normal. Imaging, audio, copy and burn all work fine.

Thanks for the reply post,
TerryS.

Okay, it wasn't clear before that Explorer is seeing the drives but not the
disks. That's a different story. Do you have third party burning software
installed? If yes, has it worked with these drives before?

In the past, burning programs supplied with drives would work with just
about any drive attached to the system. In recent years, I've seen those
OEM copies tweaked so that they only work with the drives that they shipped
with. "Unlocking" any other drives sometimes requires tweaking of the
installed software. Other times it requires that the old OEM software be
uninstalled and replaced with a full retail copy.

Third party software often turns off XP burning. Sometimes the two (XP and
the other program) can live in harmony and the user easily selects between
the two to burn. But if the two can't live in harmony, XP burning is turned
off and the third party software takes over instead.

It doesn't quite sound like you're facing third party vs XP burning but it
does sound like you could be facing the aftermath of removing third party
burning and XP burning hasn't been fully enabled again.

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem so I am adding to this thread. I recently upgraded
from 98 to SP. The default drivers apparently loaded for the drives, one a
CD only, one a CD-R/W. My Windows Explorer will recognize the drives but
does not sense media in them. The drives work, but only if I go to Control
Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager and select the drive, then Volume

Populate. Apparently whatever is supposed to "auto populate" the drive is

not working. I suspect a driver setting someplace, but haven't been able to
find a thing in a week or so of messing around. This sounds like what TerryS
is experiencing, but he has not said if he can populate the drive manually.
It would be interesting to see if he can, and even more interesting if
someone could come up with an answer.

 

[Sharon F]

I have the same problem so I am adding to this thread. I recently upgraded
from 98 to SP. The default drivers apparently loaded for the drives, one a
CD only, one a CD-R/W. My Windows Explorer will recognize the drives but
does not sense media in them. The drives work, but only if I go to Control
Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager and select the drive, then Volume
not working. I suspect a driver setting someplace, but haven't been able to
find a thing in a week or so of messing around. This sounds like what TerryS
is experiencing, but he has not said if he can populate the drive manually.
It would be interesting to see if he can, and even more interesting if
someone could come up with an answer.

Unfortunately "an" answer is not always the case. Slight variations in a
situation change the perspective.

In your case, you upgraded from Win98. Since that version of Windows did
not contain any CD burning software, I would suspect leftovers from the old
burning software are to blame. "Upper and lower filters" are discussed in
both of the referenced articles below. The aumha.org document includes a
link to a tool that will reset the filters to default values.

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpcd.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=324129

Another consideration - if you are trying to read disks that were burned by
the old software, make sure these have been "closed" so that they are more
likely to be read with any optical drive. If not closed, they have a
tendency to work only on the systems where they were burned or on systems
with the same software package installed that was used to burn the original
disk.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately "an" answer is not always the case. Slight variations in a
situation change the perspective.

In your case, you upgraded from Win98. Since that version of Windows did
not contain any CD burning software, I would suspect leftovers from the old
burning software are to blame. "Upper and lower filters" are discussed in
both of the referenced articles below. The aumha.org document includes a
link to a tool that will reset the filters to default values.

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpcd.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=324129

Another consideration - if you are trying to read disks that were burned by
the old software, make sure these have been "closed" so that they are more
likely to be read with any optical drive. If not closed, they have a
tendency to work only on the systems where they were burned or on systems
with the same software package installed that was used to burn the original
disk.

Thanks. I had done the second suggestion initially, i.e. set my burner
(Roxio Drag-To-Disk) to use the option "read on anything" all along.
However, even some commercial CD are not "loaded". Another intresting data
point, and one which makes the drives at least usable, is that if I
right-click and display the properties, the drive will spin up and read the
CD. I discovered that this afternoon while still "messing around" with the
problem. I also find that some (but not all) software distribution disks
will spin up and auto exec since I tried to reload Roxio in the event that it
was the problem. Of course, during the reload, I had a full blue-screen
crash followed by one of those "Windows won't start" screens which I have now
just overcome by a restore point taken before removing the Roxio burner.
Ain't computers fun?

 

[Sharon F]

Thanks. I had done the second suggestion initially, i.e. set my burner
(Roxio Drag-To-Disk) to use the option "read on anything" all along.
However, even some commercial CD are not "loaded". Another intresting data
point, and one which makes the drives at least usable, is that if I
right-click and display the properties, the drive will spin up and read the
CD. I discovered that this afternoon while still "messing around" with the
problem. I also find that some (but not all) software distribution disks
will spin up and auto exec since I tried to reload Roxio in the event that it
was the problem. Of course, during the reload, I had a full blue-screen
crash followed by one of those "Windows won't start" screens which I have now
just overcome by a restore point taken before removing the Roxio burner.
Ain't computers fun?

Observe the system carefully for a bit. Since you can get the drives to
respond by right clicking on them, this may be related to power management.
Check settings in Control Panel> Power Management. Even with the "always
on" power scheme the default setting allows some components to sleep.

If drives are allowed to sleep - well, the optical drives are connected to
the same IDE controllers. It may be that the instances where things work is
when the drives have recently been "activated" (they're not asleep) and the
times they are not working are when they are slow to return from sleep
state. Sometimes this can be rectified with a BIOS update or at least
minimize the inconvenience by adjusting the sleep settings for "drives."

For the blue screen error, look in Event Viewer to see if the failed
startup was recorded and, if so, which driver was mentioned.