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CD-ROM Drive Missing from windows xp

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by foughtrl 4 views

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I have a Sony VAIO PCG-Z1VA laptop that has recently lost the CD-ROM drive from MY Computer, Device Manager, and Disk Management. The BIOS says Secondary IDE - NONE.

However, I recently completed a System Recovery from the Sony recovery DVD so the Hardware obviously works from boot. Much to my dismay, the System Recovery did not restore the drive to proper working condition.

Also, before system restore I connected a plug-n-play external cd burner via usb and it would not recognize this either.

I dunno what is going on, but I don't suspect it is a cable issue as the drive works from boot for the system restore dvd.

also in device manager, if i uninstall the secondary ide device then reboot, XP finds the hardware and claims it is ready to use, but it fails to appear in My Computer, Device manager, etc.

Thank you for your help.

3 replies

by clong-tech

I worked on a computer for two days doing everything I could find on the web and everythihng I could think of to recover the lost optical (CD/DVD-rewritable) drive on a Windows XP computer.
I tried the recommended REGEDIT changes deleting the Upper and Lower Filters and Microsoft Mr. Fixit but they didn't fix the problem. I put in a new optical drive with the same problem. I checked all hardware. Defragged. Did a complete CheckDisk. Nothing would fix the problem.
Every time I would install ANY optical drive, I got the nasty yellow ! on it with an Windows error Code 39 message saying the driver wouldn't load.
I finally fixed it!
It was a Virus.
The Virus had infected 6 files and was keeping Windows XP from properly loading the optical drive drivers.
AVG didn't keep the Virus off the PC or fix the problem when I did a complete scan. This was a big surprise to me.
Avast removed the Virus when I did a "Boot Scan". Avast detected and deleted 6 infected files that AVG didn't find.
After the Avast "Boot Scan", the optical drive still had the yellow ! on it and the Windows error Code 39 but after I Uninstalled the optical drive and scanned for hardware changes, it installed the driver with no problem!
Avast is a free antivirus program that can be downloaded from http://www.cnet.com Just search for Avast, download it, register for the Free version, Open the User Interface, click on the Scan Computer link, click on the "Boot-time scan" link, click on the "Schedule Now" link. Restart your computer and wait for it to scan every file. It should find several infected files.
Good Luck!

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