CDROM Not Appearing in My Computer - PC Hardware Questions & Answers

Rana writes in with a hardware question

Question: Respected sir; my CDROM drive is not appearing in my computer and not functioning properly. Please recommend best tip for the problem.

Answer: I would first make sure that your CDROM is recognized by the computer. Watch the screen during bootup to see if it shows the CDROM listed when it shows information about the hard drive. If you can’t see this screen then there may be a key you can press to show the startup (POST) screen. If not then go into the BIOS and see if its listed there. If not then it most likely a hardware problem and can be a bad drive or cable. It may also be a loose cable.

If the computer does recognize it then its most likely a Windows problem. Here is a Windows 98 registry edit that fixes the problem a lot of the time. It may or may not work in your situation. Be sure to backup your registry before attempting this. If you don't feel comfortable editing the registry then you may want to get help on it since you can make your computer not work at all if done incorrectly.

Open the registry editor by going to Start, Run and typing regedit and clicking Ok. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}

If its not there then check in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Remove the Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values from the right side and then reboot your computer. Don't forget to backup the registry first from File and then Export.

You can also try this automatic fix utility from Microsoft.

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