avuncular

I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with two CD/DVD drives. I'm running Windows XP home edition. The drive that only plays is an LG (HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8162B). It came with this pc. The other that both plays and writes is a Lite-On(LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-16935). This is a replacement unit that I installed a couple of years ago. Both of these drives have been running fine until today. Today neither runs. When I checked the Device Manager, I get the message "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware". I get this for both drives. I uninstalled and reinstalled both units. I still get the same error message. It seems odd that both stopped at the same time. I've been thinking about reinstalling the operating system but of course can't do anything without at least one operational CD/DVD drive.
HELP?!

mommabear

Until somebody else comes along with a better idea, there are two things you could try. Turn off your computer and unplug it from the power supply for several minutes. Plug it back in and boot up. Believe it or not, just doing that can mysteriously solve some problems.

The next is similar, but more involved. Turn off you computer and pull the plug from your ac power. Open the case and remove the cables and little power plugs for both the drives. Now, turn the power on again, and let Windows reboot normally.

Turn it off again, just like before. Now go back in the case and re-attach the drives. Boot to Windows again and let the Hardware Manager find the "new" hardware. Hopefully it'll install the drivers correctly again.

__________________
YES WE CAN!

avuncular

Thanks for the suggestions, but neither worked. I still get the same message - Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

af3

This is very strange. It is my understanding that MOST optical drives don't require special drivers. They conform to a standard known as ATAPI and should run without special drivers. Although special software is required to use special features in the device such as disc burning or LightScribe, the devices SHOULD be able to read most mediums without special drivers.

If you have a rare oddball make/model of optical drive, check said drive's manufacturer's website for special software and drivers that may be required to use the drives.

I suspect this to be a symptom of a damaged or a poorly configured Windows installation. Sometimes, you can fix this by installing the latest service pack for Windows (SP3) but in most cases you would have to reinstall Windows.

In the case of a bad configuration, I have seen this once on my brother's computer. I simply extracted driver.cab and sp2.cab to a folder on the desktop and told the driver locator to search the folder for the driver it needed. Why Windows was refusing to search driver.cab and sp2.cab is beyond me but this fixed the problem. We have since then restored his computer and the problem no longer exists
Could you please tell us the driver file name Windows is looking for?

Good luck!

avuncular

These two optical rives are not unusual and have been working for at least two years without any problems.
I tried your suggestion of creating a new folder on the desktop and adding driver.cab and sp2.cab. I also added sp3.cab since I have service pak 3 installed. When I asked Windows to search for a new driver, it wouldn't accept that new folder location. It was greyed out and couldn't be clicked. So, I moved those cab files to the Windows root directory, as Windows would accept that as an acceptable location to search for the drivers. Once I clicked OK, Windows searched for a bit and came back with a message that it couldn't find any better software than was already installed.
The fact that both drives stopped working at the same time has got to be a major clue. As you mentioned, perhaps the OS installation has become corrupted. But, how can I reinstall the OS without the optical drives?

af3

EXTRACT, meaning using a program like 7-Zip to unpack the .cab file contents to the new folder. http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

When it comes to getting Windows to search a user defined folder for drivers, here is an example screen for you where a custom folder is specified:

Where it says "Utility\CP210x\WIN" specify the folder on your desktop where the extracted drivers reside.

Give System Restore a try (built into Windows XP) and see if it will bring you back to a time when the drives worked.

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This is to solve the inability of Windows to find the required drivers. If the devices are physically burned out then you may have to replace them.

To install Windows, put in the restore disc (if you have one) and restart your computer. The restore disc should give you the option to boot from it. It should say something like "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." for about 5 seconds and then continue to start Windows.

If your drives don't want to boot (please try both) it may just be a preference set in your BIOS to only boot from a hard drive.

Try this and report back, hopefully something will help...

avuncular

Thanks for responding.
I got a working solution from the TSF articles manager from another post that I made. The solution involved deleting some registry files.
The DVD drives are now functioning!

af3

Yay! Have fun!

cooldad99

Help! I have the same problem! What Reg files did you have to delete?

Deleted090308

The upper and lower filters:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

cooldad99

Thanks! Deleted the reg files and they work. John

Deleted090308

Good news.