There have been reports of CD or DVD drives that have disappeared on Windows XP based computers after a program installation or a Windows upgrade. In some cases, the CD or DVD drives disappeared for no obvious reason.
If you find yourself in such a situation, take heart. This registry tweak for Windows XP based computers restores missing drives after a quick restart.
Be sure to make a back-up of your current registry settings though. A back-up provides you with a means to restore your registry to the original settings should any issues arise.
To restore your missing CD or DVD drive:
- Click Start and go to Run. Now enter regedit.
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE on the left side of your registry editor.
- Once you’ve found the folder, expand it by clicking on the cross on the left side of the folder.
- Go to SYSTEM. Expand the SYSTEM folder.
- This will take you to CurrentControlSet. Expand this folder.
- Look for Control. Expand Control.
- Now go to the Class folder. Expand this folder.
- Look for {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Be careful. Make sure that you have the correct sub-key, as long numbers and letters can be confusing.
- Look at the right hand side of the box. Look for UpperFilters.
- Double click on UpperFilters. A new box will pop up.
- Delete the value data in UpperFilters. Be sure that you are deleting Value Data and not the key or mutli string values. Click OK.
- Look at the right hand side again. This time look for LowerFilters.
- Double click LowerFilters and delete the Value Data. Again, delete the value data and not the key or multi string values. Click OK.
- Exit the registry and reboot.