All of a sudden Windows 7 (64 bit) lost all DVD and CD-ROM drives. It worked fine for about a month, then I don't know what happened.
At first I thought it was a hardware problem - that my DVD-ROM had malfunctioned. But then I realized that Windows 7 no longer picked up on Demon Tools drives either. I can boot both Windows installation and Knoppix from the DVD-drive.
So it seems to be a general problem with "disc-media". When trying to reinstall the hardware DVD-ROM Windows recognizes the drive (though sometimes simply label it as "CD-ROM drive"), but then says something went wrong - with from what I understand is a default error message (39), claiming the driver has become corrupt.
I've tried every Microsoft recommended action, i.e. uninstall, reinstall, look for driver updates etc. etc., but with no luck.
Any tip most welcome!
13 Answers
It could be a bugged upper/lower filter set by a DVD/CD-rom application:
- Go to run (or hit Win+R), type Regedit and click OK.
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
- Right-click the key and Export it before making any changes
- In the details pane of Registry Editor, on the right side, delete UpperFilters and also LowerFilters.
- Restart your computer
(if it doesn't help, double-click the exported reg file and reboot to return to the previous state)
Other things to try:
- Uninstall daemon tools and any other DVD/CD related tools (Remove StarForce, Remove Securom). One by one, with a reboot each time, to find the culprit
- Use deviceremover to remove the culprit driver (and reinstall a good one). But be carefull with this advanced tool, it could damage your system
I've seen serious problems with CD\DVD ROM drives that have been caused by various file system filter drivers becoming corrupt. Sometimes these are related to CD\DVD Burner programs and sometime it's content security (DRM) enforcement software that is installed with some games - SecuROM and StarForce are two examples. While most of these are fairly benign, they are quite intrusive by nature, uninstalls and updates sometimes fail and will lead to the whole CD\DVD driver stack becoming unstable or unusable.
If you open Device Manager - is the DVD reporting any errors? When you look at the Driver File details under the properties dialog for the DVD what driver files are listed and are they all present on your system? If any are missing try to track down the correct installer\uninstaller of the component in question and use those to fix the problems.
4I suggest that you follow the Drive Management steps here – read it carefully, it worked for me.
- Right-click My Computer
- Click on Manage
- On the left side click on Disk Management
- On the right side, find your optical drive and make sure that the drive letter it wants to use is not being used by another drive or maybe your card reader. If there is a conflict, right click on the optical drive and select change drive letter. Pick a letter, OK and if there is a disc in the drive the AutoPlay should immediately come up.
