I'm running windows 7 RC,on an old Compaq Presario 5wv232. 1050 MHz Athlon processor. Only 640 Mb of pc 100 RAM. I have a HP 1040 I DVD burner being used as ROM drive. Also have a genericCD burner installed.Sometimes the drives,both DVD and CDdisapears from PC. It have done this three times, and after a few days it reapears. I can't figure it out. No added software or hardware to cause this to happen. Can anyone please tell me why this is happening, and how I can prevent this from happening again? The last time it happened, I restored to a eailer date and that worked. I still do not know why it happened.

Check if there is any filter driver loaded by the DVD drive. Delete filter driver===================== 1. Click "Start", in the Start Search box type "regedit" and press Enter. 2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} 3. Right click on "Class", click "Export"; please name the file as "RegBackup" (without quotation marks) and then save it to the C:\ drive as a backup. Note: In case we need to undo the modification, we can double click this RegBackup.reg file to restore the registry key. 4. Highlight this key, on the right pane, check if the "Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters" values are present. If so, please right click on the values and select "Delete" to remove them. After deleting filter drivers, please reload the drivers. Reinstall driver===================== 1. Click "Start", in the Start Search box type "devmgmt.msc" and press "Enter". 2. Expand "DVD/CDROM Drives". 3. Right click the listed DVD/CD-ROM, and click "Uninstall". Please uninstall all devices. 4. Restart the computer. The drivers will be loaded automatically.Arthur Xie - MSFT

I'm running windows 7 RC,on an old Compaq Presario 5wv232. 1050 MHz Athlon processor. Only 640 Mb of pc 100 RAM. I have a HP 1040 I DVD burner being used as ROM drive. Also have a genericCD burner installed.Sometimes the drives,both DVD and CDdisapears from PC. It have done this three times, and after a few days it reapears. I can't figure it out. No added software or hardware to cause this to happen. Can anyone please tell me why this is happening, and how I can prevent this from happening again? The last time it happened, I restored to a eailer date and that worked. I still do not know why it happened. DeaconJones - There's a setting in Windows Explorer's folder options, on the View tab - Right below the "Hidden Files and Folders" option and right above the "hide extensions for known file types" that reads "Hide empty drives in the Computer folder"If that's checked (default), drives like optical drives won't show up in the Computer folder when there's no CD or DVD in the drive. The same goes for memory card reader drives - no card, no drive. It could be that the drive had nothing in it at one point, and did at another. Uncheck and restart Windows Explorer to change the setting so the drives show up all the time.

Uhm.. I have a problem, when I right click on Class, all it says for me is, "Modify..." "Modify Binary Data..." "Delete" Rename" Is this a major problem?

Benjamin,I think he meant to say right click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}, not 'Class'...

I even clicked on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and it said Library not found, and won't let me go to it.

Can you highlight that line and then go to the File menu and choose export?

I can but I don't know what to do after that because all it does is just saves it.

Benjamin,Right. Go back to Arthur's post and follow along, but use that key where Arthur says 'Class', then do the 'File', 'Export' and "please name the file as "RegBackup" (without quotation marks) and then save it to the C:\ drive as a backup." (from step 3 above).

I'm not yet runng w 7 os but I did the steps above and my CD/DVDW is again loaded. Now I have to find OS 7 on my computer, copy it to the DVD and then load it and PLAY...Thanks 2 million.Snooper100@windstream.net

There's a setting in Windows Explorer's folder options, on the View tab - Right below the "Hidden Files and Folders" option and right above the "hide extensions for known file types" that reads "Hide empty drives in the Computer folder"If that's checked (default), drives like optical drives won't show up in the Computer folder when there's no CD or DVD in the drive. The same goes for memory card reader drives - no card, no drive. It could be that the drive had nothing in it at one point, and did at another. Uncheck and restart Windows Explorer to change the setting so the drives show up all the time. Also, on the first tab (General) of folder options, enable "Show all folders".