22 replies to this topic

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Guys,

I'm having a big problem right now and I would appreciate any help. I am running Vista on an HP Pavilion dv6500 notebook and in the last few days I've tried installing Turbo Tax, but my CD/DVD drive is completely gone. I can't find it in the Device Manager, when I go to the Run prompt in my Accessories file and type in E:/ I get an error message saying that the drive is "unknown".

I've gone on line and tried this fix:

1) Close all open programs

2) [color=blue ! important][font=inherit ! important][color=blue ! important][font=inherit ! important]Click[/font][/font][/color][/color] on Start, Run, and type REGEDIT and press Enter

3) Click on the plus signs (+) next to the following folders

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM
• CurrentControlSet
• Control
• Class
• {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

4) This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.

• UpperFilters
• LowerFilters
• UpperFilters.bak
• LowerFilters.bak

5) If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete

6) After deleting the keys, close the Registry Editor

7) Reboot your computer

But that did nothing. Does anyone have any ideas, tips or could you point me to some directions to fix this?

Thank you very much.

[Harry Hooper]

Right-click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and select "Properties". Click on the "Hardware" tab and then on the "Device Manager" button. You will see the list of devices present in your computer. Under the "DVD/CD-ROM drives" category, your DVD drive should be listed, e.g. Hitachi 32sh7 RW/DVD. Right-click on that listing and select "uninstall". Press "OK" and close all dialog boxes. Reboot the computer and let it auto-detect the DVD drive. See if it now works.


EDIT: Whoops, I just realized you said you can't see it in Device Manager. If you press the Eject button on the DVD drive, does the tray open?

Also, you should remove any USB drives while you track this down.

Thirdly, since it's a notebook, maybe the drive has loosened from the notebook's chassis. Try pulling the drive completely out and then reinserting it & then rebooting.

Edited by Harry Hooper, 27 March 2012 - 08:13 PM.

[beezer]

http://www.tomshardw...-drive-detected

Sorry, just saw that you tried this exact fix, my bad

Edited by beezer, 27 March 2012 - 09:02 PM.

[crow216]

Is it opening and closing? (meaning, is there power being supplied to it?)

1- Stupid solution is to try it with the power cord plugged into the laptop. Sometimes for power saving purposes, the system completely disables the drive.

2- When your computer is loading up, load up the bios. This happens before the windows screen. Usually it's f12 or del to bring it up. Once in the bios, go to your bootup menu and see if your CD drive is listed there. If there is no cd/dvd drive present then the problem is not a software issue, it's a hardware issue.

[brs3]

How old is your laptop? I have the same one, and my CD/DVD drive hasn't worked in months. CDs go in and spin & spin, but the laptop doesn't acknowledge it. I'll try these steps suggested.

The camera doesn't work either. I've chalked it up as being a piece of useless crap after 3-4 years.

Edited by brs3, 28 March 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

If you press the Eject button on the DVD drive, does the tray open?

Also, you should remove any USB drives while you track this down.

Thirdly, since it's a notebook, maybe the drive has loosened from the notebook's chassis. Try pulling the drive completely out and then reinserting it & then rebooting.

Yes, the tray opens and closes fine. Will remove any USB drives. I was thinking the same thing about the drive loosening. How does one do that? I tried that a few days ago, but I didn't want to do it too hard because I didn't want to completely break the drive. Is there a release latch?

1- Stupid solution is to try it with the power cord plugged into the laptop. Sometimes for power saving purposes, the system completely disables the drive.

2- When your computer is loading up, load up the bios. This happens before the windows screen. Usually it's f12 or del to bring it up. Once in the bios, go to your bootup menu and see if your CD drive is listed there. If there is no cd/dvd drive present then the problem is not a software issue, it's a hardware issue.

1. Yes. My laptop battery is for shit, so I always have my machine plugged in.

2. So the bios is enabled by pressing F12? Once I get in the bios screen, is it easy to find the bootup menu? I have never done this before.

How old is your laptop? I have the same one, and my CD/DVD drive hasn't worked in months. CDs go in and spin & spin, but the laptop doesn't acknowledge it. I'll try these steps suggested.

My laptop is about four-and-a-half years old. So it may be time for a new one.

Thanks again, everyone.

[Harry Hooper]

See page 59 of the manual here to re-secure the drive.

Unfortunately, there's a decent chance the drive's laser is toast at this point.

[Max Power]

A user here had a virus last week that replaced the CD-ROM driver, causing his optical drive to disappear in Windows. One of my staff took care of it, so I don't know how it was resolved, but I was suprised that it was a software problem versus a hardware one. You could tell for sure if you have a bootable CD lying around. Any Windows disc would do. If the computer starts up from the CD, then you know the drive is fine and you're dealing with a corruption/virus issue.

[weeba]

My drive isn't recognized by my PC either, hasn't been for a few years. Usually not a big deal, except for tax time.

A step to get turbo tax installed is to rip the CD to a ISO file using another computer, then use a virtual drive to mount the ISO on the main laptop.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Unfortunately, there's a decent chance the drive's laser is toast at this point.

I have a feeling that this is a hardware issue because I've been lugging this thing back and forth from work in my backpack.

And Hoop, once I take the drive out, what should I look for? Is there an easy way to tell if the laser has crapped out? If the laser is ok, would fixing the problem be as easy as taking the drive out and plugging it back in?

A user here had a virus last week that replaced the CD-ROM driver, causing his optical drive to disappear in Windows. One of my staff took care of it, so I don't know how it was resolved, but I was suprised that it was a software problem versus a hardware one. You could tell for sure if you have a bootable CD lying around. Any Windows disc would do. If the computer starts up from the CD, then you know the drive is fine and you're dealing with a corruption/virus issue.

Max would you be able to ask your staff member what steps he/she took to take care of the problem?

[teddykgb]

Well he already gave you the first step....you need to see if the drive is visible outside of Windows, which you can accomplish by seeing if it's identified in the BIOS or by booting from a bootable disk like a linux bootcd (which, funny enough, you can't burn one if your drive is shot, so you'd need to have access to another drive to do this). If you can't boot from the CD there then you've got a hardware problem and it's time to get a new computer. If it shows during boot at the BIOS, you'd probably still need at least a boot cd to know if the laser on the drive is dead. If you can boot from the CD, then you're looking at a software issue and you can look fro the virus name or run a generic anti virus tos ee if you can figure it out, but you really should start by eliminating hardware failure and move up the chain from there.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I just did a bios check and found this under boot options:

- CD-ROM Boot [Enabled]

And when I went to Boot Order, I found:

- ATAPI CD/DVD ROM Drive

So, unless I'm mistaken it seems to be more of software problem, right?

[Harry Hooper]

As mentioned above, you want to try to boot off a CD to see if the laser is actually reading the disc. Do you have a Windows O/S CD, that's bootable. Otherwise borrow one or a LINUX boot CD.

In the BIOS you want the ATAPI CD/DVD ROM Drive listed first in the boot order.


EDIT: Don't worry about unseting and re-seating the drive right now until you've eliminated other avenues.

Edited by Harry Hooper, 28 March 2012 - 01:44 PM.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

In the BIOS you want the ATAPI CD/DVD ROM Drive listed first in the boot order.

Ok. Thanks for this, it was listed second. Right now I'm running a virus scan, but I will place it first.

[kneemoe]

Ok. Thanks for this, it was listed second. Right now I'm running a virus scan, but I will place it first.

JMOH, this just is in order to boot from the CD, it will not affect how windows 'sees' the drive in any way. (just FYI)

Edited by kneemoe, 28 March 2012 - 03:39 PM.

[JakeRae]

My drive isn't recognized by my PC either, hasn't been for a few years. Usually not a big deal, except for tax time.

A step to get turbo tax installed is to rip the CD to a ISO file using another computer, then use a virtual drive to mount the ISO on the main laptop.

You can also just use the online version of TurboTax if all you care about is your taxes. I'm assuming the OP is actually concerned about recovering the drive functionality and that TurboTax was simply the catalyst to recognizing the problem.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

You can also just use the online version of TurboTax if all you care about is your taxes. I'm assuming the OP is actually concerned about recovering the drive functionality and that TurboTax was simply the catalyst to recognizing the problem.

I never thought about using TT online, but that might be a possible solution. I have a feeling that my drive is completely fucked because I did the scan, found two viruses, cleaned them up and ran all of the updates and still nothing. I haven't tried the boot drive yet, but if it can't read one disc, I'm not sure why it would read the boot disc.

[kneemoe]

I never thought about using TT online, but that might be a possible solution. I have a feeling that my drive is completely fucked because I did the scan, found two viruses, cleaned them up and ran all of the updates and still nothing. I haven't tried the boot drive yet, but if it can't read one disc, I'm not sure why it would read the boot disc.

Because it wouldn't be Windows trying to access the drive, but the BIOS. If the optical drive is showing up in your BIOS settings there is good reason to think it may still function (though it might not, the laser might be screwed up) and at least test it with some kind of boot disk, be it windows or some linux (gparted/memtest/ubuntu live CD whatever) flavor

[teddykgb]

You're not understanding the advice you're being given. The anti virus checks are at this point premature. What you need to figure out is whether this is a software or hardware problem. Until then you have no next steps. You need to try a boot disc because it practically eliminates software as a problem. The only way the boot disc doesn't load is if the drive's laser is bad or it has come loose or some other hardware problem has occurred. If it reads the boot disc, then the alternative is true, and you know that the drive is able to read a disc, and now you can get more clear direction on how to troubleshoot this as a software problem. Until you know whether it's the hardware or the software, anything you do is at best a complete stab in the dark and even the tests you do do can be invalidated by some other conditions. Everything hinges on determining what kind of error it is.

[weeba]

Do you know the drive type? Also, is the drive showing up in "my computer" at all?

For instance, mine shows up there, but won't read any DVD/CDs

[Harry Hooper]

Do you know the drive type? Also, is the drive showing up in "my computer" at all?

For instance, mine shows up there, but won't read any DVD/CDs

Read the message immediately before yours to see why you want to try to boot off a CD to see if the laser mechanism is working.

[weeba]

Was only asking if the drive is showing up at all as a device under "my computer"

I'm interested in the drive model type, because what he is saying is very similar to what I'm experiencing with my PC.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I'm not sure exactly what the model type is for my drive. I'm probably going to have to dick around with it this weekend, so I may be able to tell you then.