Hello to all,

While trying to make a copy of a music CD today, I saw that somehow, my CD and DVD drives have vanished, which is very strange.

Anyone have a solution for this?

Hi there Gray, sounds like an interesting problem you've got. To start I've got a few questions to find out more about the problem:
- Have you gone to start->control panel->system->hardware and looked if your drives do appear there?
- When they do, do you see any red/yellow marks in front of them?
- If there are, doubleclick on the deivces and copy and paste the errorcode here.
- Have you recently installed or uninstalled software/hardware before this problem occured or used a 'tweaking' program?

Good luck, Bram

I went there and they are not there. There's not even a CD-ROM section in the hardward sub-categories.

Allright, the next thing to do is to check whether the cables are connected as they should be.
Disconnect the power supply of your computer and remove the cover. Before touching anything inside, discharge yourself of static electricity by touching a radiator, or by touching the metal frame inside your computer. This way you won't electrocute components inside your computer (sounds strange, but you won't be the first to electrocute parts :-))
Now take a look at the cables connected to your cdrom drives. Remove them, blow at the connectors to make sure there's no dust and reconnect them. Follow the cable to the motherboard and repeat the process.
Afterwards, place the cover back on, reconnect the power and boot your computer.
While booting press F1, F2 or Escape, to enter the bios. You'll see the lisiting of drives (where, depends on your motherboard, so you may have to search in the menu's or take a look at the manual).
Are your cd-drives listed there as well? When they are, exit the bios and continue starting your computer. When they're not you probably have a hardware issue. Did you change the hardware configuration? (added/removed drives?)
Now go back to the hardware section and check if your drives are there. When they're not but they do show in the bios, the problem is within windows xp. did you install any programs before ecountering this problem?

Unfortunately I have to go now (college) but I'll be back in about five hours or so. When you need more assistance one of the other helpers will take a look at this thread ( I hope ;-)). When I get back I'll also take a look and continue helping.
Good luck, Bram

Well, I don't remember installing anything major recently, but I was having trouble with a few trojans and I got help removing them. Maybe one of the files that were removed had something to do with the CD drive.

When I checked the BIOS, the drives were there.

Allright, the next method is quite radical, so be carefull.
- Goto start->run->regedit (enter)
- Browse and click on this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
- On the File menu, click Export.
- In the file name box, type savedkey, and then click save
- Click the REG_MULTI_SZ data type UpperFilters, and then click Delete on the Edit menu. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
- Click the REG_MULTI_SZ data type LowerFilters, and then click Delete on the Edit menu. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
- Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer."
Source, microsoft knowledgebase

good luck