CD/DVD Drives Missing

The symptoms which one would experience are the following:

• You cannot access the CD drive or the DVD drive by using My Computer.
• One of the following error messages appears when you view the CD drive or the DVD drive in Device Manager:

1. Error message 1
   The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31).
2. Error message 2
   A driver for this device was not required, and has been disabled (Code 32 or Code 31).
3. Error message 3
   Your registry might be corrupted. (Code 19)
   

• You receive an “error code 39” error message.
• A message that resembles the following appears in the notification area:
  Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Methods to resolve the problem

Method 1: Guided Help to delete the registry entries
Note We recommend that you uninstall all CD recording or CD writing programs before you delete the registry entries. You can reinstall any programs that you use after you resolve this problem.

Guided Help is available to delete the registry entries that can cause CD access problems. Guided Help can automatically perform the steps for you.

The actions that this Guided Help performs can be undone after Guided Help is finished. To undo this Guided Help, run Guided Help again. On the Welcome page, click Undo this Guided Help, and then follow the instructions.

For more information about Guided Help, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Description of Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base articles

Requirements to install and to use this Guided Help

• You must be logged on to Windows by using a computer administrator account to install and to use this Guided Help.
• You must be running Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to install and to use this Guided Help.

You must first download Guided Help. To start, click the following link.

Download Guided Help

Method 2: Manually delete the registry entries
Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

Log on to Windows by using an account that has administrator rights and permissions. Then, follow these steps.

Step 1: Start Registry Editor

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Registry Editor starts.

Step 2: Delete the UpperFilters registry entry

• In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
• Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
• Expand Control, and then expand Class.
• Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
• In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters.
  

Note An UpperFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the UpperFilters registry entry, you must click UpperFilters and not UpperFilters.bak.

• On the Edit menu, click Delete.
• When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the UpperFilters registry entry:
  

Are you sure you want to delete this value?

The UpperFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.

Note Do not exit Registry Editor. You must have this program for the next step.

Step 3: Delete the LowerFilters registry entry

• In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
• Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
• Expand Control, and then expand Class.
• Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
• In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters.
  

Note A LowerFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the LowerFilters registry entry, you must click LowerFilters and not LowerFilters.bak.

• On the Edit menu, click Delete.
• When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the LowerFilters registry entry:
  

Are you sure you want to delete this value?

The LowerFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.

• Exit Registry Editor
  

Step 4: Restart the computer

If a CD recording program no longer works after you restart the computer, you must reinstall the CD recording program.

Method 3: Run this Patch

• Open Notepad or any word editor program and copy paste this:

'Restore CD-Roms and DVD's to Explorer
'xp_cd_dvd_fix.vbs
'© Doug Knox - rev 04/14/2002
'Downloaded from www.dougknox.com
'based on cdgone.reg

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next

Dim WshShell, Message

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\UpperFilters"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\LowerFilters"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr\"
Set WshShell = Nothing

Message = "Your CD/DVD-Rom drives should now appear in Windows Explorer." & vbCR
Message = Message & "You may need to reboot your computer to see the change."

MsgBox Message, 4096,"Finished!"

• Save it as {filename.vbs}

Note file extension should be .vbs

• Run the file.
• Restart Computer
  

Sources: Microsoft.com, Barugon.wordpress.com, Forums.techarena.in