Vista Cannot See My DVD/CD Drive

[Paul_D]

I hope someone may be able to help this computer simpleton.

 

We purchased a new PC fairly recently which runs Vista Home Premium. All was fine until recently when I tried to install a new programme. I can see the blue LED flashing as if trying to run a disk but 'my computer' doesn't show anything as being in the DVD drawer. Device manager shows the drive to be working correctly although I cannot 'populate' the drive under one of the tabs. Running the optical drive analyser tells me that there is no DVD drive present...???? I've tried uninstalling the device driver and rebooting the PC. Vista recognises the 'new' hardware and installs a driver but it still doesn't work.

 

Surfing Google it seems I'm not the only one with this problem but the guru's talk about editing registries - way over my head!

 

Any ideas anyone?

[Chris Goddard]

All I can say Paul is I have had this one MANY times before on XP and it is usually something to do with trying to install NERO!! But as I don't use Vista I am afraid that is it as far as I can help??

 

You don't say however what you was trying to install? And do you have all your codecs for Vista? Installed? Also had that last week after unloading NERO again!!!

[Paul_D]

All I can say Paul is I have had this one MANY times before on XP and it is usually something to do with trying to install NERO!! But as I don't use Vista I am afraid that is it as far as I can help??

 

You don't say however what you was trying to install? And do you have all your codecs for Vista? Installed? Also had that last week after unloading NERO again!!!

 

Hi Chris,

 

I was trying to install a game but had noticed that I also couldn't create a system boot disk just beforehand. Vista is fully updated as far as I know - I've tried all that. I was impressed with the simplicity of Vista at first but am seriously reconsidering. The only thing I've recently installed (from the internet) are two Anti-Malware programmes. One on subscription and one freebie. P.S. I gave up on Nero ages ago.

[chavender]

But nero's nice ! remove the offending drive then re-boot up the pc ,shut it down again ,refit the [empty] drive (prefably on a different connector/cable ,making sure the master/slave option is set currectly ! on the drive unit ! ) boot up pc (it should recogise the drive ! )

 

if the said drive fails too show in the my computer [with drive letter] then goto control panel > admin tools >computer mgnt > disk mgnt (in left hand pane) > see if its listed there ,if not buy a new drive !

[Paul_D]

But nero's nice ! remove the offending drive then re-boot up the pc ,shut it down again ,refit the [empty] drive (prefably on a different connector/cable ,making sure the master/slave option is set currectly ! on the drive unit ! ) boot up pc (it should recogise the drive ! )

 

if the said drive fails too show in the my computer [with drive letter] then goto control panel > admin tools >computer mgnt > disk mgnt (in left hand pane) > see if its listed there ,if not buy a new drive !

 

Cheers Steve,

 

Planning something along those lines tomorrow. I'll be reclaiming my old PC and taking the Lightscribe DVD drive out and fitting it to the new one and find out what the score is. As to buying a new one, it's less than a month old and a (supposedly) all singing and dancing HD and BlueRay jobbie. PC World will be put to task.

[corydoras]

Worth checking that all the drive's cables are firmly connected too.

[Anthony78]

Hi Paul,

This happened on my laptop running vista too. If it happens again just follow the instruction below. It worked first time for me.

 

 

 

 

If the drives are still listed in the Device Manager, delete them then, carefully follow this fix:

 

 

 

a. Click on Start --> Run --> and type in 'regedt32' followed by the enter key

b. Expand the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" key (looks like a folder) by double clicking it (or clicking the "+" next to it.)

c. Expand the "SYSTEM" Key

d. Expand the "CurrentControlSet" Key

e. Expand the "Control" Key

f. Expand the "Class" Key

g. Look for a key containing the following string of letter and numbers:

{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

h. Highlight this key by left clicking once on it

i. On the right hand side you are looking for "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" under the "Name" column, once you find these delete them by right clicking on them and choosing "delete"

j. Exit the registry by clicking on the "X" in the top right hand corner of the screen.

 

reboot and now your drives should work fine.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Ant

[Paul_D]

Hi Ant,

 

Many thanks for that. I had actually stumbled across this on the HP help site. I actually do not have the upper and lower filters listed on my machine so cannot delete them. Hence I think that it is the drive itself that has failed. I have not been able to swap it out yet though to prove it.

 

I actually continued on to step 4b in the link below and my machine didn't like this at all. It failed to install the drivers. I'll get it sorted though.

 

Thanks again

 

HP Link