[novicegeekgirl]

Hi,

Recently both my internal CD drive and my external Iomega USB drive quit at the same time. I'm running Windows XP Pro on an elderly Compaq machine and I've spent many hours now trying to figure out what the problem is. I've tried driver updates, driver rollback, uninstalling and re-installing etc., etc. etc. and I'm at my wit's end.

In Device Manager I get an error message that says Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39). My external drive is a LITE-ON LTR-523275 USB device. My internal CD drive is an IDE-CD R/RW 4x4x24.

I downloaded Service Pack 2 from Microsoft which should have allowed me to boot up Windows XP from floppy disks. However, I have to change my BIOS to load from floppys and I don't know how to do that.

Can someone please help me? My home office is on the second floor next to a window over the driveway. I'm have having a hard time resisting the urge to open the window, pick up the computer and.....please stop me before it's too late!!!

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Hello novicegeekgirl...

Sounds like something has set filters on your optical drives.

Click Start then Run and type regedit...click "Ok"

In the left pane, expand (click +) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, then Class, and click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} In the right pane, are UpperFilters and/or LowerFilters listed?

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hello novicegeekgirl...

Sounds like something has set filters on your optical drives.

Click Start then Run and type regedit...click "Ok"

In the left pane, expand (click +) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, then Class, and click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} In the right pane, are UpperFilters and/or LowerFilters listed?

wannabe1

[novicegeekgirl]

Thanks, Wannabe

Yes both an upper filter and a lower filter are listed.

Novicegeekgirl

[wannabe1]

Let's remove the filters. I'm betting that will bring your drives back online.

Right click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and choose "Export". Save this to your desktop...name it "filters.old".

Right click on LowerFilters and choose "Delete"...accept the change.

Right click on UpperFilters and choose "Delete"...accept the change.

Close Registry Editor and reboot. When Windows starts, you should have your drives back.

Let me know if this is not the case.

[novicegeekgirl]

Thank you so much, wannabe

You are amazing! I have both of my drives back and all is well. When I grow up I "wannabe" just like you.
But now I'm curious...the last thing I did before both my drives went kaflooey was install Nero 7. Could that have caused the problem? I uninstalled it 2 weeks ago thinking that there may have been a conflict and won't re-install if that software added the filters that caused the problem.

If you weren't several states north and west of me I'd hug you. Instead, please accept my gratitude.

novicegeekgirl

[wannabe1]

Glad that worked for you!

Nero does use hardware hooks (filters), but usually doesn't cause problems unless there is a conflict with another "hook". Right click on the file I had you save to the desktop (filters.old), point to "Send to" and choose "Compressed folder". Attach the resulting compressed file to a reply here and I'll take a look to see if I can spot a conflict. You can follow this Guide for uploading images to help you attach the file...it's done the same way.

Once I've had a look at that, I'll be better able to tell you if it was Nero or another application that set the offending filters.

[novicegeekgirl]

 filters.old.zip   987bytes   93 downloads

Here's the file. Also, should I choose to donate my current machine to Operation Bootstrap, what is the procedure?

N-G-G

[wannabe1]

It was the Nero that set the hooks. More specifically, the file seems to belong to InCD which is bundled with Nero and a few other burning softwares. You should be able to use the Nero if you use the Custom install and do not install the InCD feature.

Should you decide to donate your old machine, just contact me here and I'll make the arrangements with you to have it shipped to me, I thank you kindly for considering this and for the generous donation you've made to the project. I'm just readying three machines to deliver to a rural school near here to be given to students in their district. We CAN make a difference....

You can delete both of the filters.old files...they are no longer needed.

[novicegeekgirl]

Good evening, wannabe

Thank YOU for all your help. My birthday is soon and I will probably be looking to get a laptop with more of, well, everything. I've saved G2G in my Favorites and will contact you when it's time to send ol' Bessie to re-manufactured pastures. As for the donation - it's the least I could do for so noble and worthy a cause.

Thanks again, N-G-G