[scottportraits]

Feb 5, 2007 Midnight

Hi GTG Techies,

After a battle with malware and a complete system rebuild, (a destructive take-down and OS re-install), I find my CD and DVD burners are disabled.

The Device Manager has the two drives (one is internal and the other is external) marked with little yellow "!'s".
Right click on either and we find the dialog proclaiming the device driver can't load (Code 39), and may be missing or corrupted. The 'Driver' tab has the specific files listed where these drivers are, so I look them up. They are in C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers.....and I found each of the four or five of them in there, apparently intact.

There's some other quirky behavior the PC is exhibiting, but it is relatively minor compared to not having your CD installation drive available. DVD burner, too, is out of reach.

I tried everything. Everything I know, that is. Tried 'Updating Driver', scanning for hardware changes, rolling back the drivers, and even uninstalling the whole drive, then re-installing it upon boot-up.

The PC is recognizing them. They appear in the Device Manager, and after uninstalling and rebooting the 'New Found Hardware Wizard' finds them both....only to pop that they are not installed right and may not work.

Although the 'Device Manager', the 'New Found Hardware Wizard', and my free version of 'SandraLite' all show the presence and detection of these hardware devices, If I go to 'My Computer' I find it is NOT listed where all the drives and mass storage gadgets are. So there is no way to access them, since they also don't show up on the Explorer file tree either.

I used the Accessories > System Tools > Back-up and Files & Settings Transfer Wizards. Copied all data, etc. onto an external hard drive, and proceeded to do a complete destructive take-down, using the little funky disk that eMachines supplies when you buy the PC. I do not have a real XP Home install CD, Microsoft wants more and more money, as you all know. So it was just the System Restore disk that eMachines sells with the PC.

I am about to run an sfc /scannow to see if all protected system files are still intact, but this is just routine, time-consuming, and will probably not show any problem.

The only other thing I can think of is if the motherboard is starting to frazzle, you know, burn out.

Any expert advice from the upper echelon of GTG's technical master-minds ???

Help would be greatly appreciated.

- scottportraits

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Am I understanding you correctly that you did a format and reinstall of windows using the recovery cd? Or did you just install windows over the top without a format?

The format and reinstall should have worked if not it could possibly be hardware but I doubt it, you could try this patch

cdgone

[Doby]

Am I understanding you correctly that you did a format and reinstall of windows using the recovery cd? Or did you just install windows over the top without a format?

The format and reinstall should have worked if not it could possibly be hardware but I doubt it, you could try this patch

cdgone

[hfcg]

Hello, and welcome to Geeks To Go.
I have seen this problem a few times.
Please follow these directions.
Let's have you uninstall the DVD-Drive and then have you reboot and let windows reinstall the drivers for it. To do this, do the following:

• Go to START-->RUN and type devmgmt.msc
• In the new window that appears, click the + symbol next to CD/DVD-ROM Drives.
• Locate the drive in question and right-click it and choose UNINSTALL.
• Once it's finishing uninstalling, reboot your computer.

Once it's rebooted, try putting a DVD in it again and see if the same thing happens.

----------------------------

If after rebooting you are still having problems, try the following:

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}

Right click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and choose Export. Name this file "filters" and save it to your desktop. This file can be deleted when it is determined it is no longer needed.

In the right pane, if either UpperFilters or LowerFilters are present, right click on it and choose Delete...accept the deletion. Delete both if they are both present.

Close Registry Editor and reboot.

----------------------------

If after doing that your drive still doesn't show up, please download CDGone from HERE. Once it's downloaded, extract the files to your desktop and open the READ ME FIRST.TXT file and follow the instructions there.

[scottportraits]

Feb 7, 2008 4.30pm est

Hello HippieFreakComputerGeek,

Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU !!!!

Uninstalling drives, then deleting that one little registry error (lower limit) did the trick ! I will write another reply asap, but I just wanted to get this one off and let you know your solution WORKED !

Iwill give you the whole story in a few hours.....

Thanx again, and cheers

-scottportraits

[hfcg]

You are most welcome.
This happened to me right after I upgraded to Vista.
One day every thing works fine.......

[scottportraits]

Feb 8, 08 5pm est

Hello HippieCG,

Once again, I need to say in a big way THANKS for helping me with that obscure registry value deletion.
Clearly, you saved the day.

Once the CD drive was operational, I was able to reboot using the System Recovery disk that eMachines sells with the PC. Once there, I did a complete 'destructive' system tear-down, so I could build it back up again from scratch in a pristine way....that is, carrying over no garbage embedded or hiding out from before. That was what was truly needed.

I lived in the Bay Area for over 25 years, and spent hundreds of afternoons and evenings in the Haight/Ashbury neighborhood. I lived near Berkeley, and you know what kind of reputation history has for us about Berkeley. I'm a true orignal hippie, too, although I was still in high school for all the war protests.

There is a little story of how the machine came to need a destructive OS recovery. My Network Connections were getting a bad IP address, 169. prefix I believe, and I thought it was viral. As it turned out, the real culprit was a frazzled cable modem from Adelphia/Comcast.....a Motorola SB5101. But I went thru a cafeteria of strategies to fix (but broke worse) the system. I did a sfc /scannow and found no protected files were damaged. I did a non-destructive system restore from the eMachines disk. Couldn't get on-line for the life of Riley.

Now last year in December I got hit real bad with a few trojans; it was real nightmare. But I could get on-line and GTG saved the day over a 2 week period. The "Final Solution" ultimately boiled down to doing a profile change. I was navigated thru this Herculean process by JSTRvr, one of your top-flight techs. But some of the garbage managed to seep thru even that drastic a change. So I lived with a little minor league bad behaviors and went about on my merry way.

Then the cable modem broke. I goofed up some of those User Data, Application Data, Settings, etc files trying to track down the reason.....but I made it far worse. So I used the Accessories>Back-Up Wizard to back up all my data onto an external HD, and the Files & Settings Transfer Wizard to back-up the programs, etc I had on my PC, but were loathe to lose. What I didn't know was that the many of the installed apps (like MS Office WORD) would not install or launch when transfered back to the newly built bald OS that a destructive restore leaves you with. Further, continued bad behaviors would be imported into the new pristine OS when old settings were transfered back. So, in essence, I muddied the clear water I strove so hard to purify. I re-polluted the new skeleton with corrupt flesh and blood. The nightmare was that the CD drive was disabled, so I could not do yet another destructive take-down and rebuild. Once you showed me how to fix it, I was able to do the data back-up, (but not settings or programs), and melt it down yet again, again ! From there I spent all day yesterday building back up the system and installing my apps.....getting back to where it was originally, except this time without karma-sludge from the past. There's still some loose ends, but they're inconsequential this minute.

I drove across town (20 mile round trip) to Comcast and replaced the broken Motorola SB5101 modem for their new one, an Ambit U10C018 , cheap and made in China. I immediately got a good IP address, and could go online to post an "S.O.S." message at GTG about the disfunctional CD drive.... which you answered. From there we fixed the CD drive and I began the arduous task of building everything back up again, except this time correctly and right-from-the-start.

So thank you again for that registry value deletion info which saved the day....and night.

One last problem still looms. This new modem is getting me low ID ratings for games and file sharing. I went to the Ambit site to try to configure it so it wouldn't 'block traffic'. But I can't get in without a passord. Also, I don't remember exactly what you do once inside their house, anyway.

So could you help me set up this cable hi-speed modem so I get High ID ratings once again, like with the old but better quality Motorola model.

It's an AMBIT U10C018. My hi-speed account churns about 100 kb/s.

Thank you again, you are a good technician and an evolved 'old soul'.

-scottportraits

[hfcg]

One last problem still looms. This new modem is getting me low ID ratings for games and file sharing.

I do not know how to fix this problem.
I was waiting for some one who does to reply.
If no one replies you can post this problem in the network forum.

[scottportraits]

Oh, okay.

So being a computer technician is that specialized.....

I wonder if there's anything like a 'renaissance-Tech-Man' - one who can handle any and everything....

Probably immanently impossible.

Incidentally, I also notice another bug in my rig. After starting over and building the OS back up as scrupulously as possible, there is an explorer.exe complaint. I know I've seen this one before at the forum, and it is common.

I have lots of digital JPEG's. Files and folders full of 'em. When I launch Windows Explorer, or try to open any folder directly or indirectly, the thumbnails open in an erratic way. Then a memory error box pops closing down that screen. Oxc000005 - and I have the settings configged to operate for 'Best Performance', with paging files custom set to twice my RAM number. One time after an explorer file screen shut-down, besides the above error box popping, another box popped from Dr Watson. The details were very sketchy.

I notice that the PC is very slow, even after thorough defrag with JKDefrag'er. All the apps are reinstalled 'clean', so I don't know how else to tune-up the system. I'm thinking about installing one of those registry cleaner apps like PC Doctor, Registry Mechanic, Windows Optimizer, etc. Do you think it wise? Do you have a favorite one to recommend ?

Lastly, do you think I should close this topic here, now....and start two more new topics for the 'Explorer.exe Woes' and the "Cable Modem Gets Me Low ID's" questions ? This might be a better way....so I'm pretty sure I'll do that....will start composing them ASAP.

Thanks again vintage hippie man !

-scottportraits

[hfcg]

So being a computer technician is that specialized.....
I wonder if there's anything like a 'renaissance-Tech-Man' - one who can handle any and everything....
Probably immanently impossible.

Computer technicians are not "specialized". I am not at the highest level, so I do not have the answer to every issue.
You posted about a specific issue, that I helped you with.

[scottportraits]

Feb 9, 2008

This CD-drive installation problem has been fixed and resolved to my satisfaction. This topic is now closed. Many thanks again to GTG technicians.