DVD drive and CD-Writer drive not working.

Lord Nikon

The other day, I felt that I had too much stuff running on startup, or just running in the backround. I dived straight into msconfig and changed stuff, I also messed around with WinPatrol too.

Since then, both my dvd drive and cd-writer drive have now decided to not work at all. I have tried to enable them both in Device Manager, DVD drive is there and enabled but will do nothing, I even tried updating the driver, still nothing. CD-writer drive isn't even in device manager.

I tried doing a Add Hardware search, but nothing comes up for either drives. I know I have done somthing relly wrong, and I can't figure out what. Please help, thank you.

pauln

What Operating System? Are they showing up in My computer with drive letters / E: etc. or totally missing?

Edit:
If it's XP then I'd say just go and revert the PC to a restore point prior to making the changes,
Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-System Restore
It could save alot of guessing as to the cause.

Lord Nikon

XP Professional
Nope, not showing up in My Computer
I had System Restore turned off.

I'm fubar'ed

pickarooney

You could try this.
Open the registry (start, run, type regedit)
Save a copy using File, Export.
Search for Lowerfilter.
You should see a folder-shaped item on the left open and a list of entries on the left, including Upperfilter and Lowerfilter. Right-click on each of these two entries in turn and delete them.
Reboot and allow Windows to reinstall the filters.
Check if the drive works.

mp3guy

you could always give removing the 2 IDE channels and letting them reinstall...

jor el

neuromancer wrote:

I had System Restore turned off.

The one good thing that MS have come up with in the last 10 years and you turned it OFF (sorry for shouting).

I'm fubar'ed

Pretty much.

In an effort to be helpfull on my part though, I suggest doing a repair install which should restore your drives and fix the registry. This shouldn't leave you needing to re-install all your software as it's not a completely new install. It's more of a final straw sort of fix if the other suggestion don't work though.

Lord Nikon

Thanks for the help guys, i'll try it in the morning.

Wandering Dazed

Bit obvious but have you uninstalled the drives in device manager and then scanned for hardware changes? Do they work in safe mode? Try creating a new user and see does that work. Check event viewer for service control manager events indicating driver problems and google them....

Lord Nikon

Wandering Dazed wrote:

Bit obvious but have you uninstalled the drives in device manager and then scanned for hardware changes? Do they work in safe mode? Try creating a new user and see does that work. Check event viewer for service control manager events indicating driver problems and google them....

The drives don't appear in Device Manager at all, I even scanned for Hardware Changes too, nothing found. Tried Safe Mode too, and not there either.

Stranged thing though.
The DVD drive opens and closes, when using the button on the drive.
The CD Writer drive doesn't open or close, but the light is "on" permanently.

Lord Nikon

mp3guy wrote:

you could always give removing the 2 IDE channels and letting them reinstall...

What would the IDE channels do, also, will they defininely re-install after a bootup?

mp3guy

neuromancer wrote:

What would the IDE channels do, also, will they defininely re-install after a bootup?

They're the channels your drives are plugged into. Yes, they will reinstall, otherwise your pc wouldn't boot

Shiny

neuromancer wrote:

The CD Writer drive doesn't open or close, but the light is "on" permanently.

Well that drive needs to be reset anyway.
There should be a tiny little hole on the front of the drive
somewhere. stick something into it and push.
Should be reset then.

Also reset the Bios. One of my drives stopped being recognised and
a bios reset sorted the whole thing out.
But maybe yours is being recognised during startup?

Lord Nikon

Shiny, no reset button on CD-Writer, only on DVD drive.

MP3Guy, Uninstalled IDE drives and after bootup, it found a Samsung drive, don't think it's either DVD or Writer.

One of the guys who works with me in Systems said I could just copy the bootpath from another PC and stick it on mine, which runs XP. Can someone verify this? I also fooled around in the bios, can't seem to figure out how to do a Bios reset. I did however set drive priorities, but this doesn't say exactly what drives I'm prioritising.

This is seriously annoying me now, and I won't be in work until Monday to copy any XP bootpath.

Anyone have any other ideas, before I start to physically remove the drives themselves, which I am leaving till a last resort.

Neuro

Lord Nikon

Update : Removed wires and stuf from both drives and took them out of the PC tower. Powered up without drives. grand
Connected drives up and restarted, both drives still not avalable. This really sucks.

Wandering Dazed

Shiny wrote:

Well that drive needs to be reset anyway.
There should be a tiny little hole on the front of the drive
somewhere. stick something into it and push.
Should be reset then.

Also reset the Bios. One of my drives stopped being recognised and
a bios reset sorted the whole thing out.
But maybe yours is being recognised during startup?

That tiny little hole is normally the manual eject button for the drive. I don't know of any drive which has a reset button.

Are the drives detected on post in the bios? Have you tried one drive at a time? Maybe a jumper/cable issue which coincidentally happened during your msconfig ammendments??

Lord Nikon

Wandering Dazed wrote:

Are the drives detected on post in the bios? Have you tried one drive at a time? Maybe a jumper/cable issue which coincidentally happened during your msconfig ammendments??

Their not being detected in bios, well i haven't checked since putting them back into the tower.

Shouldn't they re-install automatically when i put them back in?

Lord Nikon

Still having problems with this. If anyone can think of anything else please let me know.

pickarooney

No luck with my suggestion (post 4)?

Lord Nikon

pickarooney wrote:

No luck with my suggestion (post 4)?

Yeah, I tried it, it didn't have much of an effect. I remember seeing it on Microsofts Support page too.

Anyways, I got it sorted soon after I posted last night. I went back into the Bios and tinkered about. I think the blank disc that I was gonna burn when I originally had the problem, was part of the problem. I never thought it would have any problem with the drives.

Thanks for all your help.

Neuro

Lord Nikon

I'm back, again. So, I thought the probelm was fixed, but no.

UPDATE :

DVD drive works, with DVD's and other discs.

CD-Writer works with audio cd's and cd-roms.

CD-Writer freezes up when I put in a CDR, it doesn't read the disc, and removed the DVD drive icon and the CD-Writer icon from My Computer.

As you all know, this has been going on for quite some time, if anyone could help me with this I would really appreciate it.

Neuro

jhud

1) You could try re-installing any software and drivers you got with the dvd and cdrw.
2) You could go to the dvd and cdrw home page and see what they suggest.
3) Try getting a download Clean tool for the software for both dvd and cdrw off there home page and re-install software.