laptop DVD Rom AWOL again?

[gman]

Ok folks, heres the deal. My fooking DVD rom keeps dissapearing from my laptop. I have done two factory restores in recent weeks....both times, it restored the Rom Drive. But for some reason, it lasts a few days before it is being removed from both My Computer and Device manager. it is really doing my nut in. The only things i have dowloaded are, utorrent, VLC player, AVG and any updates from windows. It has to be something in there that is causing the problem.
Anyone got any idea....coz i will have to do a factory restore (which takes 2 hrs) if i want to get it back, coz i dont know any other way. Also....there is no point doing it, as it will soon dissappear again, judging by previous experience

Pt II

I been investigating for a few hours now, and while it seems a common problem, I have yet to find a fix. tried the specific so called Microsoft Fix It soloution....NO LUCK (waste of time) and the latest thing i have tried is this.............

"Reports have filtered in that CD or DVD drives will suddenly cease to exist in XP systems. Most often this has been reported in conjunction with program installations and Windows upgrades, but it has also happened for no apparent reason. This tweak will restore the missing drives after a reboot.


[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
Key Name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Value Data: [Delete All Value Data from UpperFilters and LowerFilters]
Note: Do not delete the Key or the Multi-String Values. Delete only the data values.
Exit Registry and Reboot"

No luck, coz the upper and lower flters dont exist!

Anyone have a clue as to what to try next. i have searched ALL afternoon and the above seems to be the only option offered.

 

[gman]

had a brainwave...and did a system restore back to 28th Sept...when i did a factory restore....but it didnt make the DVD Rom come back....BUT......I went back into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
Key Name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.....and this time the upper and lower filters WERE there....so i deleted them as instructed and rebooted......but alas.....still no joy....no DVD Rom. Also...went into the Bios....and its not listing the drive there either, so basically,i have no way of doing a factory restore if something happened.

 

[Liesje]

Is the drive listed in device manager?

 

[gman]

Sorry Liesje, i managed to muddle my way thro to find it again. But to answer your question, no, it wasnt showing in Device manager. I think its microsoft updates that keeps uninstalling the Rom. I cant think of any other reason for its constant disappearance.

 

[Liesje]

Hey when there is no other explanation it often is the MS updates!

 

[ntalwar]

Make sure you have the latest BIOS update. My media card reader drives kept disappearing until I updated bios.

 

[gman]

Oh..havent heard of that before...how and where would i do that?
The drive was disappearing from the bios too....so you may be on to something there.

 

[gman]

Hey when there is no other explanation it often is the MS updates!

Are you just joshing or being serious? The only culprit i could think of was MS updates, as its the only thing that frequently changes on my laptop

 

[Liesje]

Being serious. There's even a known issue with a recent Windows update causing some HP Pavilion models to blue screen. Remote the update or do a system restore rollback and voila! computer is fine.

 

[ntalwar]

Oh..havent heard of that before...how and where would i do that?
The drive was disappearing from the bios too....so you may be on to something there.

Go to the manufacturer's website and type "bios update" in the support search box (for your model). Then just download it, install, and reboot.