Thread: XP wont load recognise disc drive on laptop

Hi - ive got a 6month old laptop with Windows XP Office student and teacher edition 2003 installed. It has got an internal CD drive which has worked just fine up till recently. Now, when I turn the computer on, it eventually loads windows (after 5 minutes) but the CD drive icon no longer appears when I search "my computer"...nor does the windows media player recognise its existence anymore.

Strangely, if I turn on the computer (with the CD tray in the open position) windows loads onto the computer at its normal speed of about a minute plus the CD icon is actually displyed. BUT when I go to use the CD, the computer freezes and I have to reboot with the tray in the open position. I have had to use an external CD drive, and I dont have any problem using this. Can anyone help me with this problem? I had Windows XP installed by the manufacturer and have had no problems up to now. Many thanks - Annie

Hi Annie,

Thanks for your post.
My inital reaction would be that your Laptop CD Rom has developed a fault, but before we go down that road could you answer the following questions :

1. Did you install/remove any software, or change anything before this happened or was it just out the blue?

2. Have you run a virus/spyware/adware check on your system to make sure no nasties have go on and are causing problems? (i can help you with this if you havent yet)

3. Have you tried a system restore to put your laptop back to a date you know the cd rom was working? (again i can help you with this if your not sure or havent done it yet)

4. goto your Event viewer using one of the following methods

1.right click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
2.Administrative Tools/Event Viewer
3.Start/ Run/ eventvwr

Once in event viewer open the system as well as the application tabs and look for X errors around the time/date. Click on the error line to show more details.

Post back the source & event id especially of errors that seem to coincide with the time/date you last booted up your laptop

If you could post back with as much info on the above as possible that would be great

thanks

Hi Tech Master - many thanks for trying to help. I have spoke to someone who had a similar problem...they said do this: go to registry and type regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ currentcontrolset \ Control \ Class \ (4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318). Click edit - delete and confirm I want to remove the selected key and all of its subkeys. Then uninstall NERO program - restart and reinstall NERO again........

Well i done all that excet reinstalling NERO again - it helped inasmuch that I can now actually start the computer with the CD drive pushed in - the computer only takes a minute to load Windows but it still refuses to acknowledge the existence of the CD drive D...still no icon there in "My Computer".

With regards to your questions.....
1) A few months ago, I installed NERO - I noticed that after the installation, OCCASIONALLY windows media player didnt recognise any disc if it was put into drive D to play...as I say, not every time. However, up to the installation of NERO, Windows Media Player worked fine and copied/played discs okay - so as a result of the apparent conflict here and there, I just used NERO to burn and make my own CD's, but Windows Media Player to actually play them. This seemed a happy compromise between the two programs - then just out the blue not long ago, after loading windows XP, it totally played up and refused to acknowledge the existence of the D drive.

2) In regards to any spyware...I have Mcafee 2005 suite running as well as the AOL spyware program - however, I have got a rather persistent "WinFixer" adware/virus program which keeps appearing EVERY time I load Windows in. I have to manually scan with the AOL spyware prog, then block it every time I log on - I cant get rid of it! Darned thing! This didnt coincide with the disc problem though....well, not that Im aware of...

3) Ive done a system restore, but the problem persists with the missing D Drive.

4) On the event.......the "system" entry has quite a lot of errors. I switched off the computer and then on again to get the most recent records (these error reports appear to go back quite a long way as well for some reason). Here they are as they were reported upon my restart not long ago.....

error/warning source cat event
error DCOM - 10005
error DCOM - 10005
error service control manager - 7016
warning Dhcp - 1007
error W32Time - 29
error W32Time - 17

The "application" heading had no errors or warnings since my last restart.

I hope this information helps, and I really hope my deleting that regedit entry was ok - as I say, at least the comp can now seem to start with the drive thing pushed in. I cant thank you enough for trying to help - many thanks again - Annie

Hi,

Well there dosent seem to be any problems then with spyware, and the errors you posted are not anything that jumps out at me that could be causing the problem.

The registry edit you did (which was my next suggestion ) is meant to fix mystery disappearing CD roms, did you do it exaclty as follows

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class
Key Name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Value Data: [Delete All Value Data from UpperFilters and LowerFilters]
Note: Do not delete the Key or the Multi-String Values. Delete only the data values.
Exit Registry and Reboot

thanks

Hi Tech Master - many thanks for your help - I think my laptop must be possessed in some way because when I turned it on today, the CD drive D icon was there! I right-clicked it and looked under "properties" and then went through all the sub-headings - all seemed to be working ok...except when I clicked "update driver" for the device. I told it to look on the computer for the drivers and it added 3 (i think)!! Then I restarted the computer and hey presto!! It works now!!

I dont know why my computer would have lost the previous drivers because I have never touched them (wouldnt know how up to now), maybe NERO changed them for some reason? Anyway, can I just say a big thanks for helping, and lets hope my laptop behaves from now on! Thanks again - Annie Newman

No problem, im glad you have got it working ok now.
As to why it vanished in the first place is a mystery but your not the first person to have a CD player vanish, it just seems to happen sometimes.

Hi again - the mysterious disappearing laptop CD drive has vanished again...the icon was not there when I turned on the laptop again. After about 4 restarts, the icon decided to appear, so I (once again) clicked properties, then asked it to reinstall the drivers (which it done....note here - it didnt say the drivers were already installed either??!!), but even after it said the device was working properly, as soon as I put a music disc in - the whole computer froze....and even the toolbar at the bottom of the screen vanished - it just left me with a desktop picture, nothing else! I had to just turn off the computer - upon restart, the CD drive had vanished again....

It doesnt seem to make sense that the computer occasionally loads the icon in, then the drivers need reinstalling, but then it still wont play either - I dont know...maybe I'm doing something wrong? Sorry to bother you again, but any help would be appreciated - many thanks - Annie

Hello again,

Please dont think your bothering me, the purpose of the site it to help people out so just keep asking the questions

Try these
Method 1: Remove the registry entry

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
1.Click Start, and then click Run.2.In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.3.Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
4.On the File menu, click Export.5.In the File name box, type savedkey, and then click Save.6.Click the REG_MULTI_SZ data type UpperFilters, and then click Delete on the Edit menu. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

Note If this data type is missing, go to Method 2.7.Click the REG_MULTI_SZ data type LowerFilters, and then click Delete on the Edit menu. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.8.Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.
Method 2: Replace the existing driver

1.Click Start, and then click Control Panel.2.If Control Panel is in Category view, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.

If Control Panel is in Classic view, double-click System.3.On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager.4.Click the drive with the question mark next to it.5.On the Action menu, click Uninstall. When you are prompted to confirm the removal, click OK.6.Repeat steps 4 through 5 for any other drives with question marks.7.On the Action menu, click Scan for hardware changes.
Let me know how it goes, if your still having problems could you let me know the make and model of your laptop

thanks

Hi again

Tried the register editor method...but there was no joy. The device manager doesnt even recognise my D drive either, so there is no question mark beside anything. I have restarted my poor laptop many times today, but this time, each reboot did not show up any icon for the Drive D CD drive, nor did windows acknowledge its existence either.

The computer boots up ok and all other areas of the computer and its programs seem to function all right - I have windows XP home edition installed (constantly updated by auto update) - the make of the laptop is....iANSYST and the model number is D41ES.

Many thanks again - Annie

The mystery deepens!!!!

So you cannot even see the cd rom in the device mananger? You dont have a DVD/CD-ROM drives in the device list ?

Can you see the CD iROM in the BIOS, normally F1, F2 or F10, or del key will take you into the BIOS on boot up (depending on your machine), from there you should be able to see a system summary which would list your devices.

In the meantime i will have a look into some other possible solutions!

Thanks