CDR/RW Drive Missing

[scalifash]

Well I'm stumped. I've tried everything and I just can't quite figure it out. One day I boot up my desktop and the CD-RW drive just dissapeared. Out of "My Computer" that is. I went into the device manager and this is what it said (it had a little yellow exclamation mark next to it):

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Now I know the drive is plugged in, and it works. I booted up to SuSE to see if it was Windows or the drive itself and SuSE was able to read and write to the drive just fine. I've tried uninstalling the drive in the windows device manager as well but that didn't do any good.

I'm running Windows XP Pro on that computer with fully updated Norton AntiVirus and Norton Firewall (without SP1; due to performance issues).

The CD writer is an HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8240B (made by LG if memory servers). And it's the only cd drive installed on the system.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Kov-Ice]

Would physically uninstalling/reinstalling the drive possibly help? Uninstall in device mgr while in Safe Mode, shut down, unplug drive, reboot, then shut down and reinstall. Dunno...

[scalifash]

I tried that and it still wouldn't work; I also tried it in all combinations of safe mode and using a different IDE cable and Windows still refuses to acknowledge it's existence. I'm hoping I won't have to reinstall Windows but its starting to look that way. Would a new cd drive work? I know they're pretty cheap from newegg or mwave but if I got it would it work without reformatting?

Thanks for the suggestion!

[scalifash]

I just tried pluggin in a CD-ROM drive and it gave me the same error. Looks like I'm stuck with a windows reinstall to me. I'll wait a couple days in case anyone can chime in with a second opinion.

[oddjob]

Also try your cd-rw in someone else's computer. If it doesn't work in their comp either, it could be time for you to buy a new drive. Sometimes they just crap out, nothing you did or can do.

Look for bulging or leaking capacitors on your mobo, too. You could have a mobo problem rather than a Windows problem.

[scalifash]

I just opened up the case and everything seems to be in order. I haven't done much inside it beyond installing a firewire pci card. All the capacitors look normal, the IDE cables are all fine and I can use the cd drive perfectly from linux, and when i swapped the cd writer for the cd rom the bios recognized that and it also recognized when i put the cd writer back in.

I've also downloaded and applied all the windows updates and that didn't help anything.

[oddjob]

hmmm...weird

I guess it is a Windows problem. Have you tried re-installing your IDE controller and made sure that DMA is enabled?

[scalifash]

Yup I did all that and I snooped around the BIOS and everything looked ok.

I truly despise installing Windows. I think this will be the 6th time on this PC. Maybe this time I'll get a new copy of Mandrake to install alongside it and use it instead. I'm using the machine primarily as a file, print, and backup server (I burn the backups from all the networked computers off of it; it has the fastest cd burner). And my printer does indeed work with linux, so it's just a matter of getting a copy of linux that Windows will talk to...

Computers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

[oddjob]

Originally posted by scalifash
Computers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Computers: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

[scalifash]

Originally posted by oddjob
Computers: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

...or can you? *sound of gun being cocked*

[glc]

You probably have a upper/lower filter issue - this happens all the time when you play with Roxio burning software and uninstall it. Easy to fix with a registry edit.

http://www.roxio.com/en/support/kb/ecdc/eez000005.jhtml

http://www.theeldergeek.com/restore_missing_cd_or_dvd_drive.htm

[scalifash]

THANK YOU!!!! I used Roxio's patch and despite the fact that I've never touched a piece of Roxio software it worked like a charm and I can now use my wonderful little burner :-D