cd drives suddenly gone

Hi, PC config

wXPsp2. maintained regularly. FreeAVG. Latest free ZoneAlarm. w2KAS c/s nw w/WEP (yes, but connect to old Airport Express router which only has WEP). No recorded virus attacks (rare emails obviously viral, never opened. Usually run OS X on a Mac.)

Problem: just noticed tonite (may have occurred over past several weeks): have 2 built-in CD things. One is a Sony CDU4811-SS player. Other is a Yamaha 8824-E CD burner.

(third is ext. Pioneer DVR-107 via USB 1).

--All three burners exist in device mgr, but do have excl. points there (!). All 3 of course are missing in explorer. They do show up on BIOS boot.
-no new software installs. Haven't done MS mo. update for Jan. yet.

After posting I will run AVG, but meanwhile what is your best course?
-hardware - physically unplug & replug the cables (w/reboots)?
-software - system restore?
-download drivers from the net?

I can't use my slipstreamed wXPsp2 CD for obvious reasons.

I haven't tried safe mode yet. I did uninstall in normal mode & reboot, same surprise marks appeared in dev. mgr. I will next check the bios.

I have a friend's wME PC here (network connected), ran AVG just now & nothing found. Otherwise things safely dull & never encountered this before, etc.
Thank you.

 

Hi,

Something that may just work a little magic is to look for any updates for the motherboard/chipset drivers. These should update the IDE controller drivers and "reset" the optical drives.

If you have more than one type of burning software, that would start ringing alarm bells for me. Different burning programs will want to take control of the drives for themselves (apart from Windows built-in burning software).

Running Windows with the drives disconnected is a good possible reset. Reconnect one at a time.

I doubt you will find "drivers ", Win XP should run modern optical drives automatically. You may find Firmware Updates for the drives.

Matt

 

You might have clogged up Filters, MS have a Registry fix for that, have had to do that myself mainly for floppy though once for CD drive.

 

Restore missing cd drive:

http://aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip