Monday, April 13, 2009

A tale of two drives


I've seen a rash of disappearing CD drives lately. A couple different people have brought computers into the shop with this same problem in the last week. One left happy, the other... Well, the story's below with the fix to follow.

Individual #1 (who we'll call Ernie) called and explained that his CD drive has disappeared, it shows up on the POST screen, but not in the operating system. I've seen the problem a few times, and have notes from when I successfully fixed it, so I told him I could fix it for $50. Knowing it was either a registry problem or a bad cd drive (which could also be replaced for $50).

Ernie comes in and I fix his problem in less than 5 minutes time, which he's completely amazed with. He asks me a few questions, happily pays his $50 and heads out the door.

Individual #2 (who we'll call Bert) calle a couple days later. The conversation on the phone is basically the same as with the previous one with Ernie. In fact everything was basically identical with Bert and Ernie, except their reactions when time to pay.

The second conversation went kind of like this--

Bert: Wow that was quick! How much do I owe you?
Me: $50
Bert: What?!? That took you like five minutes!!
Me: I told you what it would cost before you brought it in.
Bert: Well that's too much for the work you did.
Me: OK...

Then I undid the fix, shut the computer down, unhooked it, and slid it across the counter to him.

Bert: What did you just do?
Me: I unfixed it.
Bert: But I wanted you to fix it.
Me: I did once, and I will again if you want--- for $50.
Bert: **SIGH** okaaaaaay

So I fixed it again. He payed and grumbled his way out the door probably to never return again.

Here's the fix for free-- hope it helps!!


The cd drives tend to disappear sometimes when you mess with installing/uninstalling any kind of CD burning software. The fix is most often simply to delete 2 keys in the registry and reboot.

The simple rundown of the fix is below, but if you're not comfortable with editing the registry, don't. It is by far the easiest way to brick your system.

>Click Start
>Run
>type regedit
>hit enter

First you want to back up your registry, in case something goes wrong, you can restore it with your backup file.

>Click File
>Export

name backup file (regbak or something, just remember what you called it and where you saved it )

>Click Save

Navigate to the following key folder:


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


Delete two keys
"Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters"

Close the registry editor and reboot, your cd drives should re-appear!

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