# Solved: My CD drive and DVD drive have disappeared



## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

I had just done a re-install and had everything set up and working. Wanted to view an MPEG4 tutorial on Light Room, but I didn't have a way to play it so I downloaded gustosoft's DIVX free player and fiddled around with it but could never get the mpeg4 to play so I un-installed it. I've been scanning buckets of photos, and decided Saturday morning to back them up on CD. The Phillips DVD+-RW DVD8701 and Samsung DVD-ROM SD616E disappeared.

I pinpoint the DivX player install/uninstall because I've found two errors in a log (attached)

What do I do to fix this? If I've not given enough information or asked the wrong question to get the right answer let me know. I've replaced the ribbon cable this morning-wasn't it.

Dell Dimension 3000


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## mrbrownstone (Jun 7, 2005)

I think it's likely that the disk controller has died. If this is the case then plugging in one of the drives as a slave on the hard disk cable (assuming it's not sata) will fix the problem. If this works then buy a PCI IDE card and plug your drives into that.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Try this fix: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

Triple6 said:


> Try this fix: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm


No, it didn't work. I'm wondering if a little thing like going into Admin Tools and unintalling and then reinstalling the drives would make any difference?

Meaning no dis-respect to Mr. Brownstone's thoughts on fixing this but if the drives plug directly into the mother board, wouldn't other things be going a haywire also? 
I'm just unconvinced at this point that it is anything other than software (registry?) problems.
I show two error and those errors are very close if not right on top of the installing of the DivX
(gustosoft's free player) and the uninstalling of same.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

If you go to Device Manager, do the drives show up there? Any errors listed with either?

And yeah, you can and should, go and uninstall both drives and reboot.

Those errors in the log show that the computer had trouble reading a disc, could have just been a scratch on a disc unless you get them with every disc.


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

Triple6 said:


> If you go to Device Manager, do the drives show up there? Any errors listed with either?
> 
> And yeah, you can and should, go and uninstall both drives and reboot.
> 
> Those errors in the log show that the computer had trouble reading a disc, could have just been a scratch on a disc unless you get them with every disc.


 I know I don't have a good backup of the registry from before. Is there a way to repair the registry without knowing exactly what was damaged? I dropped an email to gustosoft; no reply yet.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Fix for missing DVD/CD drives.

Create a text file with NOTEPAD containing the following data exactly as below and name it FIXCD.REG
You should have 3 boxes on the bottom in NOTEPAD.
1)Filename : fixcd.reg
2)Save as type: all files
3)Encoding: ANSI
If you do not change it from txt type to All files type, then the file will actually be fixcd.reg.txt, this won't accomplish the desired result

Double click on the file and say yes to the merge into registry question.

----------------------- Use text after this line, contents of FIXCD.REG -----------------------------
REGEDIT4

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

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr]
------------------------------ Use text before this line --------------------------------


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

"Registry repairs" are over-rated, its a good way to break more then fix.

Try Johnwill's fix, it should be similar to the one from the other site, and make sure to reboot after doing it.


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

OK, I opened up notepad and typed (triple checking) the registry fix, saving it as FixCD.reg/ all files/ ANSI.
I saved the file then opened my docs clicked on the file and clicked yes then rebooted (you didn't tell me to do that, but that seems to be the final step in most cases) 
The atch is the results. I'm not sure what I did incorrectly but...

edit: I see an error ("LowerFilters"+=) instead of ("LowerFilters"=-) What did I do and how can I fix it?


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

Triple6 said:


> "Registry repairs" are over-rated, its a good way to break more then fix.
> 
> Try Johnwill's fix, it should be similar to the one from the other site, and make sure to reboot after doing it.


I downloaded the fix and used it earlier. I am not sure whether I used it to soon or what but it didn't seem to do anything. I just downloaded and tried Dells "Driver Reset Tool" It actually found the problem on both the Phillips and Samsung, asked me if I wanted to fix it and it didn't do anything either. I did try John Will's fix (he's never steered me wrong before) but I may have messed things up by adding a "+" before the = sign instead of a "-" after.


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

Update: I edited out the error and merged that file into the registry then opened JV16's Registry finder and pasted the text into it and hit search, no hits. I'm drowning here


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

Triple6, it may be, that you gave me the correct answer and I applied in an incorrect manner.
I appreciate the time that you spent on the problem.

John Will
*Here's what I did wrong: I forgot one line of text and then saved it to D: instead of desktop. After giving me the answer, you sat back and let me figure out how to apply it correctly. 
Thanks for your help*


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Glad you got it going.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Contents of CDGone:

REGEDIT4

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

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr]

Not sure why it didn't work...


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

My downloads are stored away from C: so that I can keep track of all the programs that I download and to keep my desktop uncluttered. I know that when I put John Will's fix into 
note pad, I saved it to my Documents folder which is no longer on C drive. I believe that is why the fix didn't work the first time that I tried it, but after remaking it and saving it to the desk top it worked. Have something to do with the 'D:' affixed to the front of the file when it was saved to My Doc's? 

It was confusing not to find the lines of code that should have been added from the fix you suggested when I launched JV16's registry finder and copy/pasted into it what looks to me like the same lines of code that John gave me. That's why I say that it was probably my failure to execute the program correctly that caused it not to work.


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## mparker1113 (May 28, 2007)

I applied John Will's fix and it worked great for bringing back my CD drive (thanks much!)
But, my DVD drive is still missing in action.

The lead into this problem might have been a removing of a trial version of Visual Studio 2005, and then the loading of an Enterprise version. It was late at night, i checked that the new version had loaded and worked, and then brought the disc back to work. 

Next day i got an error message regarding missing or corrupt file, but didn't have the requested cd, so ignored. Then attempted to remove, and am getting errors that MSI installer is not available. 

Anyhow, after that i attempted to reload the trial version and after trying that, (it started and I let it be) i noticed that i was missing DVD and CD drives. 

Any idea how i might get my DVD drive back would be very appreciated. I was really hoping to work this holiday.


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## mparker1113 (May 28, 2007)

I just noticed that while my cd drive does show up in windows explorer, it will only display files as being music files, even if they are data files. So, I can't run any files out of my cd drive, including the dvd installers.


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## managed (May 24, 2003)

I think you would get more help if you start a new thread, this one is marked as solved so people will not look at it much now.


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## mparker1113 (May 28, 2007)

okay -- I will try that, thanks


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## jprovira (Jun 7, 2007)

I was having the same problems with my notebook and your cdgone.reg worked perfectlty!!


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## neos1 (Feb 13, 2006)

jprovira said:


> I was having the same problems with my notebook and your cdgone.reg worked perfectlty!!


That would be JohnWill's fix.


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## jprovira (Jun 7, 2007)

Well, Thank you JohnWill!


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## mackjazz (Oct 13, 2004)

Yesterday I completely lost my E: dvd/cd drive. I had just uninstalled Norton SystemWorks and Norton Antivirus in order to install the new versions (over installing as always caused a problem before and Symantec advises to completely uninstalled and do a fresh install with the next years product).

So when I went to install low and behold no cd drive. I tried everything and in the end contacted my notebooks mnfg Fujitsu and the tech rep. told me to do a restore to an earlier date. I did 2 and still no cd drive to be found. He then said, sorry you will have to do a complete recovery, which means wiping out everything and restoring the computer to the time I purchased it (3yrs ago).

I frantically searched the internet for an alternate solution along with alot of prayer and found John Wills solution. I followed everything and the first time I rebooted nothing so I turned of the computer and went to bed. This morning there was the E:/ DVD/CD drive and everything is working like before.

Thanks bunches John Will for this lifesaving solution.:up: 
Mack
---
REGEDIT4

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

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr]
---


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