My DVDs have disappeared after years of flawless performance.

[Lee Cook]

I've googled every way I can think of and can't find a solution to this problem.

I have 2 dvd drives. They are both in the BIOS. The lights flash on startup. On startup a read is attempted on the drive which has a DVD in it. They have both worked flawlessly for 3 years.

They just disappeared from windows in the device manager and explorer.

I checked the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} for upper and lower limits and they are not listed.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

[kenrivers]

You could try this:
1) Disconnect the DVD drives before starting the computer.
2) Reboot and login
3) Shutdown
4) Reconnect the drives
5) Reboot and see if the drives are now recognized.
Let me know if the drives do not reappear.

You could try this as well:
Do this to check for corruption and repair/replace damaged/missing system files.

1) Click on Start
2) type cmd in Search box
3) look for cmd.exe at top of list
4) Right click and choose Run as administrator
5) type sfc /scannow at the command prompt and press Enter.

For more information on how to Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

You might want to read this as well: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/missing-upperlower-filters-registry-cddvd/7f1e2d54-717e-4c5b-a03b-cd64ce4e87dc

 

[Lee Cook]

You could try this:
1) Disconnect the DVD drives before starting the computer.
2) Reboot and login
3) Shutdown
4) Reconnect the drives
5) Reboot and see if the drives are now recognized.
Let me know if the drives do not reappear.

You could try this as well:
Do this to check for corruption and repair/replace damaged/missing system files.

1) Click on Start
2) type cmd in Search box
3) look for cmd.exe at top of list
4) Right click and choose Run as administrator
5) type sfc /scannow at the command prompt and press Enter.

For more information on how to Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

You might want to read this as well: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/missing-upperlower-filters-registry-cddvd/7f1e2d54-717e-4c5b-a03b-cd64ce4e87dc

 

[Lee Cook]

Thanks ken, I tried both of your solutions and nothing has changed. One thing I noticed was that when the drives were disconnected it booted much faster than when they were connected. The pulsing windows icon lasted for almost a minute when they were connected which is when windows is trying without success to connect to them.

sfc /scannow said everything was good..

 

[kenrivers]

Thanks ken, I tried both of your solutions and nothing has changed. One thing I noticed was that when the drives were disconnected it booted much faster than when they were connected. The pulsing windows icon lasted for almost a minute when they were connected which is when windows is trying without success to connect to them.

sfc /scannow said everything was good..

Could be that both drives failed and need to be replaced. Worst case it is a problem with the motherboard.