Optical drives not working because of driver?

bigjp

Member
Sep 26, 2005
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Both of my optical drives are down after my pc froze and I had to power it off using the power button. Right now they are not showing up in My Computer and there is an exclamation mark next to them in Device Manager. Both have the following message in properties "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)".

I tried uninstalling and then installing again, but I get the same thing. I can't reinstall Windows because the dvd drive doesn't work and there is no driver for it on the manufacturer's website. Would it help to update the firmware?

Any ideas on why this happened and how I can fix it?

Also, I'm up to date with Windows updates, but there are a few I can't get to load. I'm working on that problem too, but won't be able to get to it until tomorrow because I need to print out the fix instructions and can't do that at home with X64!
 

bigjp

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Sep 26, 2005
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pcman- tried it and I still don't get them to show up.

jlbenedict- I'm looking around, but can't find how to roll back the drivers. Can you give me a hint.:)

BTW, I should mention that I'm a newbie with pc stuff.....

Thanks for the help so far guys!
 

dunkster

Golden Member
Nov 13, 1999
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Driver roll-back instructions are in Windows Help:
- Start
- Help and Support
- Use search phrase 'roll back'
- Click on Microsoft Knowledge Base

Hope this helps!
 

jlbenedict

Banned
Jul 10, 2005
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Device Manager console..

double click the device in question... in your case, your optical drive..
dlick on the "Driver" tab...

you should have probably 4 buttons labeled Details, Update, Rollback Driver, and Uninstall

 

bigjp

Member
Sep 26, 2005
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Guess I had too many words in my searches in Windows help files.

I tried rolling back and was given the message that no drivers were backed up for those devices. However, I did find when I uninstalled and then reinstalled my DVD and DVD/RW drives were both listed as CD-Rom drives. Could that be the problem?
 

bigjp

Member
Sep 26, 2005
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I tried doing a system restore, but couldn't find any date that would take.

Any other thoughts on how to fix this?
 

jlbenedict

Banned
Jul 10, 2005
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Uninstall the drivers for the optical devices in Device Manager, and then actually delete/remove the optical drives themself..

Reboot your machine.. Should reinstall the drivers, and might possibly use the native Microsoft IDE drivers instead.. if the previous drivers uninstall properly..

 

imported_Imp

Diamond Member
Dec 20, 2005
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Just wondering, have you tried booting off the windows CD to do a repair install? I think BIOS uses some standard built in thing to run the optical drives that are separate from windows. So if it doesn't work there, it should work in DOS? at least. Also, check if BIOS can even detect your drives.
 

bigjp

Member
Sep 26, 2005
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So far nothing is working. Uninstalled and pulled the plugs on the drives. Reset the CMOS. Put the Windows disk in the drive and booted....nothing.

The drives are detected in Bios. Tomorrow I'll see if I can get the disk to run from DOS....too tired right now and need to hit the sack. I need to look up how to run the disk from DOS, but if anyone wants to throw some tips my way I won't get mad.;)
 

bigjp

Member
Sep 26, 2005
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I used another hard drive to load Windows and my drives are working on the new one. I've been trying to do a Windows install on my main drive while working from the new drive, but can't figure out how to load it on the new one. Is there a way that I can do this? I'd rather not reinstall everything on my new drive unless I need to.

So can I use this new drive to work from and do an upgrade install on my old drive?