CD / DVD Drives Visible But Not Reading Discs

[moose1184]

Sorry in advance for this very LONG post...

I can't pinpoint exactly what started this problem, but I recently have become unable to read CDs or DVDs in either of my optical drives (I have a Plextor PX-716 SA and a pretty generic Sony DVD-Rom). The cause may have been an iTunes crash while ripping an audio CD, but I can't be sure since I don't use them that often.

Basically, I have no trouble seeing the drives in My Computer / Device Manager. There are no yellow exclamations or any other indications that the drives aren't properly installed. I pop a CD in the drive, it starts spinning and making the usual reading sound, and I even see the little CD icon next to my cursor indicating that Windows is trying to read the CD. However, nothing shows up, and if I try to view the CD contents in Explorer, it asks me to insert a disk into the drive. I'm certain it's not the media itself, and highly doubt both drives died at the same time.

I have spent a few days reading up on this problem everywhere online, most of which has led me to believe it is a problem with Upper and Lower Class filters in the registry. I have tried the following, in many different combinations:

Updating Optical Drive Drivers in Device Manager (it can't find newer drivers than the ones that are installed)
Deleted all Primary and Secondary IDE channels in Device Manager
Uninstalling / Reinstalling iTunes and PlexTools
Deleting the Optical Drives from the Device Manager and Restarting
Deleting the Upper and Lower Filter Registry Entries and Restarting
Modifying the Upper and Lower Filter Registry Entries and Restarting
Reinstalling the GEARAspiWDM driver via Gear's web site (this seems to be the iTunes-preferred burning driver).
Spyware check with Spybot
RegscrubXP scan and fix
System Restore to about a month and a half ago, when I'm fairly certain the drives worked (still no luck)
I EVEN tried Microsofts "Fix It" Executable, which apparently has replaced access to all of the useful KB articles that might have actually been useful here...

One other observation I made is that windows does not seem to be generating a "Lower Filters" entry no matter what I do. Installing iTunes does seem to create an Upper Filters with GEARAspiWDM as the driver. In the course of all of these trial and errors, I have looked at the Details tab on the Device Properties to reveal class level and device level filters such as redbook, imapi, GEARAspiWDM, and perhaps one other that I am forgetting...all of them I confirmed are in Windows / System 32 / Drivers.

Things I haven't tried yet: deleted the Intel Ultra ATA Storage Controllers in Device Manager, an SFC Checknow Scan (requires CD drives to work, but I believe there is a workaround to point it to a backup folder with Windows Install CD files in it), reinstalling Intel Chipset Drivers provided on motherboard CD (Asus P4P800-e Deluxe).

I'd hate to do a full reinstall or even XP repair just to solve what seems to be a simple problem, especially when the system is otherwise completely fine, so if anyone can offer any other advice on solving this or forcing windows to do a full reinstall of my CD Drives / Drivers, I'd love to hear it.

I'm on Windows XP SP3 on an old Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz comp. The Plextor drive is hooked up via SATA, the Sony via IDE.

Thanks!

Dave

[glc]

I'm not trying to be Captain Obvious here, but have you tried the drives in a different computer and/or a different drive in your computer? I think it's very possible both your drives may have failed or are dirty.

What are your +5v and +12v readings under load? Asus Probe should be able to read them out for you.