CD/DVD Drives missing from my computer

[noelist]

have XP on second hand Gateway PC, searched microsoft KB and followed instructions to delete relevant HKCU entries as instructed but the 'lower filters entry(key)' was not present but the 'higher filters' entry was, so tried to delete it and got dialog 'error occured while delete was being performed, action cancelled'.

I should explain that i had already tried deleting the drivers from ..is it hardware manager, where the drives had yellow icons by the drives, and then rebooting, but it reports that the devices are working and the drivers are the optimum, but the drives cannot be found. thats why I used the microsoft KB fix instructions,

so now I'm stumped,

 

any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

[samuria]

Some things to try. Are they ide drives and are they setup ok as slave and master? Can the bios see them it normally shows them when you boot up. Can disk manager see them?

Try removing one drive and see if that makes the other appear.

Have you used tweakui or similar as you can hid drives with that.

If you put a cd in the drive and goto start run type cmd press return and then in the dos box do a dir d:

This assumes you only have one hard drive if you have other it needs to be dir and the next drive letter so i fyou have a c: & D; Drive you would do dir e:

[noelist]

Some things to try. Are they ide drives and are they setup ok as slave and master? Can the bios see them it normally shows them when you boot up. Can disk manager see them?

Try removing one drive and see if that makes the other appear.

Have you used tweakui or similar as you can hid drives with that.

If you put a cd in the drive and goto start run type cmd press return and then in the dos box do a dir d:

This assumes you only have one hard drive if you have other it needs to be dir and the next drive letter so i fyou have a c: & D; Drive you would do dir e:

 

well it says cannot find the drive.

 

they are ide drive cables

 

have not tried tweakui

 

device manager can see them but reports cannot find them although updating the driver says they are working fine ,there is yellow icons by the drives with i in them.

Edited July 21, 2009 by noelist

[RandyL]

I was just wondering if you tried remove or uninstall the CD drive itself. Or did you just remove the drivers?

 

It might not make a difference but it can't hurt. Immediately reboot and see if Windows detects new hardware and installs the drivers for it.

 

Are you getting any error codes?

[noelist]

I was just wondering if you tried remove or uninstall the CD drive itself. Or did you just remove the drivers?

 

It might not make a difference but it can't hurt. Immediately reboot and see if Windows detects new hardware and installs the drivers for it.

 

Are you getting any error codes?

 

Yes, I removed both drives and rebooted, twice , first time it said new hardware found, then I went to hardware manager or whatever its called and in the list of stuff on the PC it has the two drives with a yellow symbol with the letter i in it, then right click on the drives, then deleted drivers, then... tried everything and then search for new hardware and it says that the drivers are fine but the drives cannot be found and in brackets error 41 which I then looked up on google and found reference to MS KB so went and d followed instructions to open 'reg summat' and found the suggested HKCU keys but one of the ones it says to delete was not there and the other one could not be deleted cos an error message said an error occured while deleting.

 

so thats the two error messages I got whilst trying to resolve my problem.

 

sorry I have word blindness and cannot remember the exact words i saw when i did all this .

so the first error code was 41

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Try this file located here in Post 7 and get back to us.

 

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/dvd-cd-rom-drives-and-printer-scanner-issues/4325-cd-dvd-drives-not-recognised.html

[noelist]

well I already did the first fix but wonder if the automatic one you suggest might do better, so I'll try it after showing you what I followed in the first place :-

 

Microsoft Windows XP

 

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.

 

Note You may also see an UpperFilters.bak registry entry. You do not have to remove that entry. Click UpperFilters only. If you do not see the UpperFilters registry entry, you still might have to remove the LowerFilters registry entry. To do this, go to step 7.

5. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

6. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

7. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.

 

Note If you do not see the LowerFilters registry entry, unfortunately this content cannot help you any further. Go to the "Next Steps" section for information about how you can find more solutions or more help on the Microsoft Web site.

8. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

9. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

10. Exit Registry Editor.

11. Restart the computer.

 

as I said there was no upper filters key, so found the lower filters key and tried to delete it but the dialog box came up as usual, are you sure etc ,clicked yes, then the dialog box saying deleting , then another dialog box which read 'cannot delete ??? error occured while deleting, so stuck.

 

before that the error message from device manager was :-

 

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

[noelist]

well now I've downloaded the auto reg fix zip file, I hope I can UNZIP IT successfully or I'll be back ask what to do.

 

 

-- Goku Attached Files http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/../images/bluedemon/attach/zip.gif Fix CD Drive.zip (284 Bytes, 726 views)

 

anyway here goes.

[noelist]

well now I've downloaded the auto reg fix zip file, I hope I can UNZIP IT successfully or I'll be back ask what to do.

 

 

-- Goku Attached Files http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/../images/bluedemon/attach/zip.gif Fix CD Drive.zip (284 Bytes, 726 views)

 

anyway here goes.

 

 

** **, these are the files that are to be deleted from the registry, this is what is in the zip file:-

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\UpperFilters]

 

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\LowerFilters]

 

there seems to be a communication error here?

I've been through that, I thought the zip file was a program for automatically do what I tried that just got that error message.

 

I see the other guy did it. (edit the registry manually and his cd/dvd drives worked after doing it,) but as I say when I did it I got an error message.

 

if you like I can perform the manual edit of the registry again if you like, and then copy and past the error message to notepad then post it here,

 

I feel I'm getting nowhere fast at the moment,

 

hope I get a good idea soon. going to try some reg fix software/programs I found today, see ya soon

[maynardvdm]

Hi

 

Yes copy the error message here, then we'll have a look.

[samuria]

You should have 2 cables on your pc for ide 0 and ide 1 I assume you have both drives on the second cable one as master one as slave. Try moving one drive to the other cable on the same controller as the hd be sure to have the cd set to slave if the HD is master if one doesn't work try th other drive.

 

It could be a faulty cable faulty controller or unlikely 2 faulty cd's.

 

If you put it on the first controller it eliminates the cable and contoller. Sometimes a drive can go down and take the second one out as well if its plugged in.

[noelist]

You should have 2 cables on your pc for ide 0 and ide 1 I assume you have both drives on the second cable one as master one as slave. Try moving one drive to the other cable on the same controller as the hd be sure to have the cd set to slave if the HD is master if one doesn't work try th other drive.

 

It could be a faulty cable faulty controller or unlikely 2 faulty cd's.

 

If you put it on the first controller it eliminates the cable and contoller. Sometimes a drive can go down and take the second one out as well if its plugged in.

 

Oh boy, have just realised that what I tried to delete in registry was the whole HK** key and thats why I got the error message. as I said I've got word blindness, so this time I clicked on the word 'upper filters' to highlight it and then on the edit button at the top of page, then selected delete,the word 'upperfilters' disappeared.

 

previously I read the instructions on the microsoft web site and they dont say 'in the right pane' so I was trying to delete the whole key and by right clicking and selecting delete, but thats probably the same as using the edit button anyway.

 

So panic over , I've got me drives back in 'my computer and I'm sure they work fine now.

 

just got to get the printer back now. well first I'll try running the CD to reinstall or use the repair option on it, thats what I could not do while the CD drives were'nt working, so if all goes well I wont be back looking for help,

 

keep your fingers crossed and is that a sharp intack of breath......

 

anyway thanks for all your sugestions, some people need step by step instructions, me.

 

what I cant visualise I cant understand, thats my problem,