dvd/cd drive icon(s) - right click not working

I have two machines running XP Home. On this machine I have two DVD drives and when I right click on the drive icon(s) I get a context menu similar to that for the hard drives.

On the other machine, also running XP Home when I right click on a DVD/CD drive icon there is no context menu and the machine ignores the click and takes me to the default "rolling hills" screen. I've moved the drive(s) DVD / CD from the secondary IDE controller to the primary and back again, changed cables, changed master slave settings, searched the Internet, run various "tweak" utilities but there is seemingly nothing I can do such that when I right click on the DVD drive icon (currently a Pioneer DVD-R A05 burner to enable the right click context menu.

I can explore the contents of the drive, but only from the dual plane "explore" selection on the "Start" menu. If I attempt to right click on the drive icon there once again I'm back to rolling hills.

There are no problems with right clicking the regular hard drives on the machine where the DVD drive icon is causing me problems.

Help is earnestly sought.

 

Thanks PeteC.

I've checked the link referred to but so far no luck. Yes I've uninstalled the drive in Device Manager and rebooted several times.

The drivers (Microsoft) are identical on this machine (where right click works) to the other machine where the right click doesn't work, apart from a few additional drivers from Roxio associated with Adaptec "DirectCD" which isn't installed on the other machine.

There's something on the site referred to about drive letters. I've changed the drive letter using XP's native disk manager in control panel. That didn't help either.

I might find something under a different category at the seemingly useful site referred to.

 

Thanks Pete C

I found this on another site :-

http://www.theeldergeek.com/cd_burning.htmhttp://www.theeldergeek.com/cd_burning.htm
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[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Modify/Create the Value Name [NoCDBurning] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: NoCDBurning
Value Data: [0 - Enable Burning / 1 - Disable Burning]
Exit Registry and Reboot

Enable/Disable CD Burning for the Local Machine

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
Modify/Create the Value Name [NoCDBurning] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: NoCDBurning
Value Data: [0 - Enable Burning / 1 - Disable Burning]
Exit Registry and Reboot

---------------------------------------------------------

I'll give it a try.

 

Thanks Pete C

I'm not game to add the registry setting. I don't mind amending them but adding them is something I prefer not to do.

I ran the registry editor on both machines yesterday and attempted to compare them. It was a nightmare. I did discover two instances of "Mounted Volumes" on the troublesome machine and deleted the one called "Mounted Volumes1" which had ancient drive assignments.

I have downloaded and run "regclean" a utility from Microsoft that seemingly does magic things. Version 4.1a is reputedly "ok" with XP. I also have something called jv16 Power Tools which has various registry tools, and have deleted some entries marked as "obsolete" but to no avail. This utility is shareware and is found at www.macecraft.com. It looks useful but not dangerously so.

I'm still where I was at the beginning. I'd like to comment on how much I love the registry and everything associated with it but I'd be a fibber.

Users shouldn't have to spend time tweaking or delving into the innards of an "intuitive" operating system.

 

Thanks Pete C

I don't mind "tweaking" the registry where there's a tool or a well documented workaround.

However. PROBLEM SOLVED. This machine has a DVD Burner that comes with BS Recorder Gold. Silly me installed it on the other machine as well (the one that isn't working). I have never used this program but I believe it's a bit like Direct CD.

I have removed BS Recorder Gold from the troublesome machine and lo and behold I have my right click context menu