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It reappeared on its own and worked just fine for a while, but this evening I went to load a cd a friend gave me, and it was gone again. After restarting several times, it reappeared. But while I was copying files from some DVDs, the computer froze, and I had to restart it. The DVD drive has disappeared again.
I did an HP tech support chat, and they gave me a link to some fixer thing, but it didn't work. Now they're telling me to do this.
Is it a good idea? Messing with the registry key scares me to death. And I don't really understand what it's supposed to accomplish.
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pH, sorry I "borrowed" your DVD drive. I probably should have asked first. I'll send it back over as soon as I'm done using it. Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Personally, I'd buy a different drive...but then, I'm impulsive like that. As long as you do the registry backup before messing around with things, you should be okay.
From what I'm reading, it looks like HP is telling you to remove two registry keys (neither of which reside on my own computer) that are potentially problematic. That the registry editing portion of the text.
The next part of it is a simple hardware uninstall/reinstall. If you've done that before and it didn't fix it, and you also have checked the registry in the area they tell you to look (Basically, follow their directions to navigate to the proper area, if there are no entries called UpperFiller and LowerFilter, you have no problems in the registry causing the problem), and the problem still exists, I'm sorry to say it but you'll probably be better of spending 30 bucks to get a new DVD drive (Which may be the best solution, since sporatic problems like this are usually a sign of hardware failure rather than software conflicts).
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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The only problem with buying a new dvd drive is that I don't think I can install it myself, since this is a laptop. Which probably means taking it to a store, and those places usually ship the computer out, so I could be without it for a while.
But I'll probably end up doing it anyway, if this doesn't fix it. I'm kind of scared of the registry key though. A lot.
I'm going to try to find a computer nerd to come over and do it for me so that if something goes wrong, I have someone else to blame.
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If it doesn't appear in Device Manager, and if it is a functional drive, the registry edit they mention SHOULD work for you. If it does not, either the drive or the motherboard (since you have a laptop) is bad.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I had the same problem with my desktop a few months ago, and that fixed it, no problem. Just don't change anything beyond what they tell you to change and you'll be fine.
There are some spyware/virus junk that gets downloaded as well as some programs that modify the registry and that's what screwed up my peripherals, and it may very well be what's screwing up yours.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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