Disappearing CD Drive

[Shoe]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

 

[Brian Cryer]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

No idea - but I'm wondering, if you run up "device manager" and tell it to
do a rescan for hardware changes (possibly f5) does it then find it? If it
does then that would at least save you from a reboot.

 

[Peter Foldes]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116
or
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976187

^%$(*&()

 

[Paul]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

What I'd try, is this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461/en-us

devcon stack gencdrom

from a command prompt window.

If you type "cmd.exe" in the Start thing, Windows 7 should find
the location of cmd.exe. Then, right click on it and select
run as administrator. That's to avoid a variety of bogus
error messages, that using the old commands we used to use,
cause with the UAC in Windows 7.

I'm currently sitting in front of my WinXP machine,
and if I run that command, this is what it prints.

IDE\CDROMMSI_CD-RW_CR52__________________________3.90____\6&360A8F2&0&0.0.0
Name: MSI CD-RW CR52
Setup Class: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} CDROM
Upper filters:
redbook <------------------ this looks like a Microsoft default
Controlling service:
cdrom
Lower filters:
imapi <------------------ this looks like a Microsoft default
1 matching device(s) found.

If you have some third party thing in that test result, then
you'd suspect that third party thing is not "recover from suspend"
compatible.

The various Fixit things that Peter Foldes pointed to, might work,
but I'd be a little curious as to what screwed it up in the first
place. If you were to re-install the thing that broke it, then
the problem might come back.

Paul

 

[H-Man]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

Is the drive PATA, SATA, or USB?

 

[Shoe]

Is the drive PATA, SATA, or USB?

Sorry, it's SATA

 

[H-Man]

Sorry, it's SATA

Have you looked into getting the latest BIOS and MoBo drivers for your
board? Is your hard rive on the same controller? Maybe a firmware update
for the CD drive. Beyond that I'm outta ideas for right now.

 

[JohnW-Mpls]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

Before rebooting, have you tried putting a disc in the drive to see if that
makes the drive come alive?

Dumb, but I was just installing a USB Hard Drive under XP and the CD Drive
did not show up till I put a disc in the drive. The mysteries of MS Windows!

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Before rebooting, have you tried putting a disc in the drive to see if that
makes the drive come alive?

Dumb, but I was just installing a USB Hard Drive under XP and the CD Drive
did not show up till I put a disc in the drive. The mysteries of MS Windows!

Under Win 7, the Explorer's folder settings has the option "Show all
folders". If that is cleared, you don't see empty drives. If it is set,
you do see empty drives.

IIRC, XP's Explorer has the same setting somewhere under Folder and
search options, but possibly with a variant of the name.

 

[Unk]

I am running W7 Home Premium Edition, 32 bit. After my computer goes
into sleep mode and awakens, the CD drive is no longer there. The CD
player says the drive is empty. Computer shows no DVD/CD drive.
Device manager shows no drive. I have to reboot to get the drive
working again. I have looked through the BIOS settings to see if
anything there might change this, but I saw nothing that looked like
it would affect this. Any ideas?

This will fix it...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116

Scroll about 1/2 way down the page to the Windows 7 section.

Unk

 

[Stan Brown]

Under Win 7, the Explorer's folder settings has the option "Show all
folders". If that is cleared, you don't see empty drives. If it is set,
you do see empty drives.

Tools » Folder Options » Navigation Pane, right?

My empty CD-DVD drive (Z shows in Explorer regardless of the value
of that setting. I even tried shutting Explorer down in Task Manager
and then reopening it.

I have Win 7 Home Premium.

 

[Bob I]

Tools » Folder Options » Navigation Pane, right?

My empty CD-DVD drive (Z shows in Explorer regardless of the value
of that setting. I even tried shutting Explorer down in Task Manager
and then reopening it.

I have Win 7 Home Premium.

Actually the setting is located at,

Computer, Tools, Folder Options, View, "Hide empty drives in the
Computer folder"

 

[Stan Brown]

Actually the setting is located at,

Computer, Tools, Folder Options, View, "Hide empty drives in the
Computer folder"

Thanks for posting. FWIW, that's checked now and has not been
changed since my restart of Windows a few minutes ago. However, my
empty Z: drive still shows up.

I think the confusion comes about because of an inconsistency in
Windows. In the left pane, under Computer, the empty Z: drive does
not appear. In the right pane, under Devices with Removable Storage,
it does appear. I had been looking only at the right pane, assuming
that they would display the same information.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks for posting. FWIW, that's checked now and has not been
changed since my restart of Windows a few minutes ago. However, my
empty Z: drive still shows up.

I think the confusion comes about because of an inconsistency in
Windows. In the left pane, under Computer, the empty Z: drive does
not appear. In the right pane, under Devices with Removable Storage,
it does appear. I had been looking only at the right pane, assuming
that they would display the same information.

Yes, I was going to post that after I read your reply, but you found it
without my help

Where you added how to reach the setting I mentioned, I'd likke to add
that it's also available directly in Windows Explorer:

Organize > Folder and search options > General tab > Navigation pane >
Show all folders