CD-ROM drive disappeared and I cannot see it in My Computer window. What can I do?

One day you turn on your computer and cannot see the CD-ROM or the DVD-ROM drive in the My Computer window anymore. This problem is very common for laptop and notebook computers and might be caused by a failed drive or by corrupted software. You can try the following repair steps before you decide that your drive is bad.

  • I found this solution on Microsoft website and it helped me many times to fix the problem with a missing DVD/CD-ROM drive. I always try removing the CD/DVD drive from the device manager first and if it doesn’t fix the problem I go with removing the registry entry. Method 1 worked very well for me.
  • If the above mentioned methods didn’t work for you, you can try to reseat the optical drive. Overtime the CD-ROM drive connector might get oxidized and a simple drive reseating can fix the problem. Try to remove the drive from the laptop and put it back. See if it will fix the problem.
  • You can also try to boot from any bootable CD to see if you laptop recognize the CD-ROM drive on BIOS level. Put any bootable CD (Live Linux CD, Windows XP CD, Windows 2000 CD, etc) into the CD-ROM drive and change the boot order to start from the CD-ROM drive. If you laptop starts to boot from the CD, then the drive is recognized in BIOS and most likely it operates properly. In this case look for a software problem. It might be necessary to reload the operating system to fix the software problem. If you cannot boot your laptop from a bootalbe CD, then the drive might be bad itself.

 

Entry Filed under: Laptop Tips and Tricks

28 Responses to “CD-ROM drive disappeared and I cannot see it in My Computer window. What can I do?”

Pages: « 3 [2] 1 » Show All

  1. 20
    Lawrence Says:

    One day, dvd drive disappearred from my lenova 3000 G410. Not available in device manager too. What is the problem?

  2. 19
    Ratib Abdulmalik Khalil Says:

    poor instalation of CD-ROM try to make sure that the CD-ROM is correctly connected.

  3. 18
    Ratib Abdulmalik Khalil Says:

    Hi,
    My CD-ROM does not read the cd when loaded
    what could be the problem?.

  4. 17
    cj2600 Says:

    Marco,
    Make sure this problem is not related to the DVD drive itself. Try booting your laptop from a bootable CD. If you cannot boot the laptop from a bootable CD, it’s possible that the drive is bad.

  5. 16
    Marco Says:

    I have the same problem, i tried using your method to solve the problem, when i start to search the upperfilters, my surprise was there is not a upperfilter in the registry in the folder {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

    I tried everything, and i’m desperated, please HELP!!!

    Thanks

  6. 15
    raMp Says:

    It Worked Great with removeing the registry file and then update driver in system unitcontrol.

    what coused my problem was Deamon tools
    wich i set to Number of devices to 0 and then back to 1.

    Thx alot!

  7. 14
    janeda Says:

    Thank you so much I tried everything I could sony’s website couldn’t help me and I tried so many things I was working on this for like 20 hours straight!!! I did this and 5 minutes later my cdrom was visible and working again!!! THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH

  8. 13
    cj2600 Says:

    Thank you Sam Jones,
    More information you can find on the Microsoft website here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/

  9. 12
    sam jones Says:

    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.

  10. 11
    Martin Says:

    Cool the driver works again!!!

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