Wayfarers of Veeshan

My computer no longer sees my DVD drive, nor will it recognize an external USB DVD drive plugged in.

History: I put a DVD into my computer to play a movie. Drive whirrs, lights up, and then the light goes out. I opened "My Computer," clicked on the drive, and it said "insert a disk into drive F." Switched to another disk, same thing.

What I've tried: uninstalling, reinstalling the drive. The computer says it's found it, it says it's installing it, and then it says something about an error being present that may prevent the device from operating properly. I have the original equipment install disk, but of course that's no good at this point. When I plugged in an external drive, it finds it, attempts to install it, and I get the same message.

I tried restoring my computer to various dates, thinking that would help, but no matter which date I use, it says it can't be restored to that date.

Ideas?

Any way you can elaborate on on the error that may prevent the device from operating properly?

Have you done any of the following lately:

Installed a new OS or service pack?
Added new hardware to your computer?
Installed new software on the computer?

Specifically have you done any of these things from the time the drive last worked until when it went kerflunkity? You said you uninstalled and reinstalled the drive, which is the first thing I would try as well. How did you go about doing this? I know the easy way in XP, but haven't tried in vista or later versions of windows.

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Merlaina Mistweave - 85 Magician

Nemesis of Quillmane and self-proclaimed master of Kedge Keep
Lease holder for the rooftops of Gyrospires Beza and Zeka

I used the device manager (I have XP) to remove and attempt to reinstall the device. Tonight I will try it again so I can reproduce the error message exactly.

I haven't installed any new hardware, software or any service packs that I'm aware of (my computer is set to do automatic updates, and if it did it while I was at work and restarted, I wouldn't necessarily know).

It worked 2-3 weeks ago and I can't think of anything I've done that would impact on the DVD drive.

One time I purchased a new disk drive for my old computer because the drive would not read the disks I put into it. The drive would open/close and light up like it was trying to read the disk, but I got nothing. While I was installing the new disk drive, I noticed that my old drive simply was not plugged in all the way. I'm not saying this is your problem, but you might want to check the plug to make sure you have it completely secure before going to greater lengths in an attempt to resolve the issue.

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"Here comes the BOOM!"

Reclusa Loxoceles
Rogue of the 52nd season

Negra Panthera
Beastlord of the 33rd season

Does the box recognize a different usb device, like a pen drive?
If so, it's got a fault in the dvd drive...if not, it's in the puter.

If usb host seems to be working, see if you can fit it in the case (making it an internal drive).
If the usb host is dead, you can add a card pretty cheaply to add more usb hosts.

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Drexxell , 71st GNecrOMancEr -- Wielder of ()
Druul , 60th Troll Shaman () + Wielder of and
Driss, 51st Dwarf Priestess of Brell Serilis
Dralia, 36th Erudite Enchantress

I opened control panel > system > hardware > device manager.

I uninstalled the CD drive. I used the add hardware wizard to find it and reinstall it.

Error message: A probelm occurred during hardware installation. Your new device might not work properly.

The properties info: Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

Also, Livo, the USB ports work for thumb drives. But when I plug an external DVD player into one of them, I get the same error message as above.

Confession: I haven't looked inside to see if it's plugged in correctly because a) it sits in one place all the time. How could it get jostled loose? but mostly because b) I have an unreasonable fear of computer guts.

hmm...the drive may have just crapped out.

fortunately, china sends us more high-beneficial-quality brand drives by the container-load every day.

geeks.com or newegg would be where i'd start

Could it be the driver?

I found this link which is specific to fixing code 19 errors for optical drives. You've already tried some (such as reinstalling the device) but step 3 there in particular seems like something good to try.

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Merlaina Mistweave - 85 Magician

Nemesis of Quillmane and self-proclaimed master of Kedge Keep
Lease holder for the rooftops of Gyrospires Beza and Zeka

Thanks, Merlain. Yesterday I tried a microsoft site that had a "fix it" button that was supposed to re-order the filters in the registry, but that didn't work.

I'll give this a try.

Although I did try opening the case to verify that everything was plugged in (and gave it a good blast of compressed air while the side was off), it was Merlain's last suggestion that worked! I backed up the registry and deleted the upper and lower filter values per the excellent walkthrough, and it's now operative.

Thanks to all who gave me advice!

Yaaaay