CD drive stuffed

[coolvxss]

Gday today i put a CD into my computer and it didn't play. I went into "my computer" and the drive is no longer there. I tried to burn a CD but "record now" says i have no CD drive. What could have happened? cheers.

[Snotty]

check connections, Have you installed anything lately,
might have lost a driver or something

[coolvxss]

Dont know much about computers so i dont want to pull apart my computer to check the connections. I have installed a few programs lately but how could that loose the driver? How could i get it back? The CD rom still works. Well it opens and closes and when i put a CD in the light goes on for a little while but then nothing. cheers.

[deeranp]

Does the CDROM drive show up in the BIOS screen?

I.e. when the computer boots and you hit <DEL> or <F2> or whatever to get you to the setup screen, is the drive detected there? You might have to do "auto-detect" or something like that depending on your PC...

If it's not found the drive might be dead. Can you get hold of a spare to swap over and see?

Hope that helps...

/DP

[VS Omega]

If the drive is still showing up in post then it's likely software. Try what DP says first, if it still comes up there try this:

It's possible if they're CD related program you installed that they've added their own driver replacing the windows one (either for the drive itself or more likely the interface).

Which version of Windows are you running? If you're running XP go to My Computer -> Control Panel -> System (or Start -> Control Panel -> System) -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager and see if there's any devices with a yellow exclamation mark ! next to them.. if there is let us know what it is.

If there's no exclamation marks then go back to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management.. Is your drive appearing in here? Because it's possible it's just lost it's drive letter.

If it is in Disk Management then right click on it and go to "Change Drive Letter or Path" and give it the letter back, and it should appear in My Computer and be accessible again.

Hope we've been able to help.

If all of the above fails then try another drive, if it also has the problem then it's software, not hardware and a new windows install might be able to fix the problem.

[coolvxss]

Hey thanks for you help. I did the BIOS thing and it is there. And did what Juzza said and yes there is a yellow exclamation mark. It says '_NEC DVD_RW ND-250 then yellow exclamation mark. What now??? Whats the yellow exclamation mark mean? Thanks for all ya help

[VS Omega]

Ahh it means it's likely that the drivers have been replaced, you can get the exact answer by right clicking on the drive in "Device Manager" and going to properties. There should be a box that says Device Status and it will say what's wrong (whether the drivers are to blame or something more sinister).

If the message says there are no drivers installed or something similar try going to the "Driver" tab at the top of the properties box and clicking on "Roll Back Driver" and it might be able to roll back the drivers to the ones that came with Windows. If it comes up with a message that there's no driver files backed up for the device then that isn't going to work but don't worry because I know another way.

On top of the button that says "Roll Back Driver" should be a button that says "Update Driver", click on that then choose "Install from a specific location (advanced), hit next, choose "don't search I will choose the driver to install", hit next and pick the top one "CD-ROM Drive", then hit next and it should install the drivers and you'll be good to go!


IF NOT HOWEVER.. then something sinister is up, perhaps your computer is infected with a virus which has damaged the windows built in driver files. If this is the case it would be possible to fix but it's a bit trickier.. let us know how you go with this though mate

EDIT: You might need to restart the computer for the changes to take effect

[coolvxss]

Hey buddy just tried all that stuff and it didnt work. It came up with this thing that said, Cannot start this hardware. Also in device manager when i went into the CD ROM properties, it says, 'Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)'

[xlr8_87]

have you tried a system restore? (i presume your using XP)
that worked when that happened to me

[VS Omega]

Alright mate did a bit of searching, try the following but only if you're confident doing so (because this could break the computer if you delete the wrong setting, just double check everything before you delete).

Hold down the Windows key on the keyboard and push R (or go to start -> Run) and type in "regedit" without the quotes.

The instructions are quoted from http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/35761/ :

To resolve this behavior, follow these steps:
Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
Locate the UpperFilters value under the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click OK.
Locate the LowerFilters value under the same key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click OK.

[coolvxss]

Problem fixed Just did a system restore and its good again. Im happy now i thought i was gonna have to spend money on my computer now i can spend it on my car. Thanks heaps for all your help fellas