DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

For some reason my DVD-RW drive does not show up in My Computer or device manager, but on booting of windows it shows in the BIOS list. I had a problem before this where it disappeared, but then came back & then went again, so I formatted my pc & on this new install of windows it's now done the same, but has permantly gone where as before it showed in device manager with code 41. I have tried other thing I found on the internet, such as deleting the LowerFilters & UpperFilters in the registry, using a zip file called cdgone which I found on here aswell as another forum, but nothing worked. I also have a DVD-ROM drive which works fine & is shown in My Computer & also device manager. I thought as that works I would change my IDE cables around so the DVD-RW is using the DVD-ROMs cable, but still nothing. My guess is that it's a registry problem, but not too sure. Thanks for any help that I may get. DJ_Price

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Try this

http://www.theeldergeek.com/restore_..._dvd_drive.htm

Hope it helps, it did me!

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

May be worth checking of the drive appears in disk management.

Right click "My computer" - Click on manage - Click on disk management.

If the disk appears here but still not in My computer, try right clicking and changing the drive letter to something diffferent.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Checked in disk management & it's not there. Also checked the page you gave Zeph, but as I said I have tried things to do with Lower & Upper Filters. There not even in the registry, so I had added them, but that didn't work either.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Does it appear in device manager at all?

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

you may find the cable was not pushed in correctly which would give out a sign of working and then not, also if you have changed the cable setting you would then have to change the jumper setting to match

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

I also occasionally and randomly lose mine...powering down,taking out all the cables and swearing then inserting the cables again and then powering up sometimes works by about the third try. ;)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Try uninstalling the IDE drivers [but don't reboot], then reinstalling them, then reboot, & you might see Windows re-detect your DVDRW when it starts up.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

No it doesn't
The cable had been reseated 3 times, it's on cable select.
Have tried this, but nothing :erm:
Not to sure what you mean by the IDE drivers. Do you mean in device manager & then right clicking on the item & uninstalling?

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Unless instructions for your specific drive said you must use the cable select option then you shouldn't use it. You should set the jumper on the back of the drive to either master or slave, depending on which connector on the cable it's attached to. If you don't have any other drives connected to that cable then the drive shoud be set to master.

Yep, where it says IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, uninstall the entries [probably 2] listed under that when you click the + sign next to it. :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

good point about cable select, not many 40wire IDE cables are compatible

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html

I agree it is best to use master/slave jumpers, as appropriate, for normal optical drives :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Does anyone still use 40wire IDE cables? I can't remember the last time I saw 1. ;)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

the last two retail optical drives I bought had a 40 wire cable in the box :)

good link btw :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

What were they, 10x CD-ROM? :p: Come to think of it, I've had a couple of retail optical drives [12x CDRW & 52x CDRW], & neither came with an IDE cable at all, but the last 2 I've bought [DVDRWs] were both OEM drives.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Oh don't get me wrong, if I could be bothered I would replace the 40 wire flat cables with 80 wire round ones & probably improve data transfer, as well as air flow - but I am wary of fiddling with things when they are working well enough - that is well enough for me ;)

I still reckon you were right about the possibility of it being a factor with the OP's problem - though I will probably never pay you a compliment again :p::D

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

LOL, I was just messing with you. Like I said, I can't remember the last time I saw 1 [well, not a new 1 anyway], so was surprised that any company would ship 1 with a new product.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

well I'm glad we sorted that out ;) :cool:

- I was going to tell dilly if you were nasty to me, anyway :angel::D


of course, regarding your profile tag line, you can put it off to tomorrow, if you want ;)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Wahoooooo!! Sorted now. After trying uninstalling the IDE stuff in device manager & nothing happening I opened up my pc & checked the dvd-rw & it was set to master, i also checked my hd's & my dvd-rom & there were all on cable select, so I changed the hd's to master & dvd drives to slave & booting in to windows they all reinstalled themselves & now the drive shows up :D, finally got there. Thank for all your help guys, I thought twice about coming here for help as I hadn't found any other information that I thought useful anywhere on the net & was just going to settle for another format, good job I came here before I did. I will remember to come here first should I have anymore problems in the future :p: Now I can finally backup my hd without any problems for the backup.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

good stuff - just make sure that you can actually launch your backup in the event of a hard drive failing.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

I'm using Acronis True Image Home Version 10 & I have a secure zone setup on my main hd & also have the boot cd, so I think I'm covered from all angles with that :). Do you use backup software, if so which? I've tried a few over the years, but had many problems with them not backing up everything I select, corrupting the backups they make etc.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

He'd probably just make me make him an extra cup of coffee tomorrow as pennance. :angel: :D

Put what [specifically, I mean] off until tomorrow? :confused:

I said uninstall them, then reinstall the drivers, then reboot, not just uninstall. ;) If you didn't reinstall the IDE drivers after uninstalling them, you probably should. :)

Anyway, glad you got it sorted. :)

Norton/Symantec Ghost. I'm not a fan of their security software, but Ghost is good.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

Did someone say coffee? :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

I did reinstall them :p: just failed to mention it then, lol. But anyway I had no joy with it, just reinstalled everything else bar the dvd-rw. I was using Ghost & I have to say I liked it, but for me it was system heavy. I was using version 12.

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

procrastinate now? - maybe we should delay that ;)

---------- Post added at 00:32 ---------- Previous post was at 00:25 ----------

I am trying Paragon 'hard disk manager' - too new to report on, yet, for me, but nothing bad to say so far :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42...ts-roflmao.jpg

Your like 1 of those cats than can hear a can opener being used, regardless of how much other noise is going on, or how quiet the can opener is. :D

I thought you might have, but thought it best to mention, just in case. :)

I haven't used Ghost in a while, not because I think there's anything wrong with it, just because I'm lazy about backing up. The last version [6 I think] I used was booted from a DOS boot disk, but was very useful. I do know Dilly's had good things to say about more recent versions though. As for being resource heavy, I don't think you have to keep it [the newer versions I mean] running all the time, you can probably just do it manually when you want to.

Oh, right. I didn't realise it was a reference to that, as it's been set to that for ages. :)

Oh, yeah, Paragon. I use their Partition Manager 7, which can copy a partition or whole drive to another partition or drive, so I guess that does backup too. Not a bad prog. :)

Re: DVD-RW Drive Has Disappeared From Windows But Not BIOS
 

I have seen that around, I will have to visit there website & take a look at it. At the moment from the few backups I have done with Acronis, it seem's decent, but only time will tell :confused:. Back to watching Bottom on Dave