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Disappearing DVD?

B

BigLar

Senior member
The internal DVD on my Dell XPS 8500 running Windows 7 (Home Premium) seems to have disappeared. Hoping it was a driver corruption problem, I deleted the driver using Device Manager and restarted the computer. It seems a new copy attempted to install but I get the message "Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)".

As an experiment I took an external DVD (Acer ESW860) and plugged it in the USB. Though the drive spins it does not show up in the File Manager. As a further test, I plugged the external DVD into a different computer (running Windows 8.1) and it was immediately recognized.

Anybody have an idea what is going on and how I should correct it?

Thanks.
 
I had this happen. Unfortunately, I cannot really offer a solution.

I did as you did, deleting the driver and restarting, more than once even.

A step I did add on account of regular operations for me, is booting into a second OS, specifically OS X 10.10 in my case. Now, the issue had been persistent in that even OS X did not recognize the optical drive for a long while. I don't know if there were things that happened in OS X that helped fix the issue.

Things that also happened between the issue becoming apparent and my having witnessed the optical drive was recognized again, is a few BIOS resets and a BIOS upgrade.

Another step in there that may be of an important note: when I removed old graphics cards to install new ones, I used Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU - available here) and in that tool's processes, it disables the automatic Windows driver installation that happens following boot, so that even the basic display driver isn't installed by Windows. Disabling this may have been of benefit.

I'm sorry I cannot pinpoint a specific fix, I had went awhile without even addressing or paying attention to the issue.
 
Surprised at how many are linking this to an iTunes problem, but the uninstall is definitely worth a try.
 
ketchup79 said:
Surprised at how many are linking this to an iTunes problem, but the uninstall is definitely worth a try.
Click to expand...

You know, iTunes on Windows is still a bunch of "meh", so I wouldn't doubt if it has some freakish issues lurking like that. I should add I have iTunes installed on the Windows desktop I spoke of, but I don't think I ever touched it when troubleshooting the optical drive issue.
 
Easiest things first. I deleted iTunes and rebooted but to no avail. I guess I'll have to go a little deeper...
 
I ran into a similar issue before with a disappearing DVD drive with iTunes installed. iTunes does install a upper (or lower) filter. Even after uninstalling iTunes the system only detected it in Safe Mode.

I ended up having to force Windows to forget about the DVD by removing the drive. Boot into Safe Mode, go to Device Manager, 'show hidden devices' and delete the DVD drive and the volume associated to it. When deleting make note of it's specific drive string. Then I went into regedit and searched that drive string and deleted its keys.

I then reconnected the drive, booted up and all is well. Even re-installed iTunes and haven't had an issue since. Well... actually, this time... anytime iTunes wants to update, I uninstall, reboot, make sure the drive still is available then install the newer iTunes. Best of luck.
 
I tried the solutions noted by ArisVer in the Microsoft bulletin including deleting the high and low filters, but no dice. The DVD is still MIA.

I'll try razel's cure next. Not to parade my ignorance, but I've never dealt with "drive string"s before. razel, could you give me a slightly more detailed description of what's going on there?

Thanks!
 
You probably installed some device or software at some time and it wrote something to the Windows Registry or it is a firmware bug that keeps you from making changes to the drive. Could also be some SYS file that keeps trying to run after you uninstall the program. ITunes is just junkware.
 
So I booted up in Safe mode and the DVD was there. But I noticed something else too.

The computer also has an integrated four slot SD/SM/CF/MS Pro reader. Those devices are also missing in the normal boot up, but do show up when booting in Safe mode. (I use the card reader so infrequently I missed it earlier...ooops.)

Any thoughts on what that means?
 
Before booting into safe mode, remove the dvd. When in Safe Mode, windows still remembers it and will show it after 'showing hidden devices.' The drive string is just the brand and model #, but just make an exact note of it... hence... drive string. After deleting from the 'device manager' you'll continue to mop up the rest Windows' memory of the drive in regedit.

The missing card readers maybe old cards or are the default MS device names of your current card reader. It happens to my Bluetooth devices that I pair. I see the default MS names, then the current ones after drivers for it are installed.
 
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By default, Windows hides references to drives that are "empty." Empty means no media in drive.

SOLUTION

These steps should make your optical drive permanently visible:

1.Click Start, Control Panel and then Tools.
2.Click Folder options, and then select the View tab.
3.Clear the Hide empty drives in the Computer folder check box and click OK.
 
Delete the upper and lower filters. I was going to type out the steps, but Microsoft has already done it for me 🙂

http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/314060

Resolution 3 has always worked for me. Seen this hundreds of times on a multitude of makes and models.

For your card reader, see if you can find it in the same Class key in the registry. Click on any of them in the left pane, and look in the right page for what it's for, then delete the upper and lower filters for it, then reboot.
 
I once put my two DVD drives as A and B under Win 7 since no one has a floppy anymore. While i did not have the problem you have i could not read discs anymore until i changed the drive letters to non floppy drives. It is odd i had that issue with a modern computer but what drive letter is your disc drive assigned to?
 
Thanks for all the help, folks. But so far, no dice.

corkyg: Tried it. The tick box was checked, so I unchecked it and did a reboot. Still MIA.

Nashemon: The reference seems to be the same one that Arisver suggested. I tried it, but no result. However, if I can't clean this up, solutions 4 and 5 beckon!

JimKiller: When I booted in Safe mode it came up either E: or F: (can't remember which).

razel: Your approach has promise! I'm reminded of a colleague's saying, "Don't force it, get a bigger hammer." It'll take me a bit to get to the brain salad surgery, but if all else fails, away I go.
 
JimKiller: Just rebooted in Safe mode. The DVD is F: and the four card slots are K:, L;, M;, an N:.

Nashemon: Solution 4 didn't work.
 
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Nashemon: While solutions 3 and 4 didn't work, solution 2 DVD/CD FixIt managed to correct the problem.

So the good news is that the drive is now usable. The bad news is that I don't know what was wrong.

The card reader remains a mystery...
 
Well try placing a card in the reader and see if it is seen again. The readers in my system don't show up when empty either.
 
PUFFNSTUFF: You're correct, an inserted card makes the drive show up. So we're done there.

The DVD shows up whether loaded or not which I what I wanted and what had been the case.

All in all, JOB DONE!

Thanks to all.
 
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