CD driver on the fritz

[edgavin42]

I have a Gateway PC, bought in 2002, with Windows XP. I've used the CD drive primarily to store our family photographs. A few weeks ago, when I placed a new CD in the drive tray, I didn't hear the normal sound of the thing revving up. The message on the screen told me to place a CD into the drive. I thought maybe the drive was defective and used a Gateway utility called PC Doctor. Following the directions I placed a full CD (again, family photos) into the tray and clicked on the diagnostic icon in PC Doctor. The drive whirred away and ran the following tests: linear seek, random seek, funnel seek, linear read, random read; all were successful. That made me think the drive was working, and maybe the software to run it was not recognizing something. I read a fair number of entries in this forum and tried some without success. I went to the Device Manager, opened "DVD/CD-ROM drives" and found this entry just below it: a yellow dot with an exclamation point in it followed by HL-DT-ST CD/RW GCE-8160B. I right clicked on this, then clicked on "Properties" and was greeted with the following message: "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing (Code 39)." I clicked on "Troubleshoot" and tried to uninstall then reinstall, but as I followed the directions I saw that it told me to insert the CD's that came with the computer. My sense of it was that inserting theCD's would produce the original screen direction to please insert a CD into the drive. I've been back to square one a good number of times now. I hope I've been specific enough in describing the problem so that some of you might be able to suggest a solution. Thanks.

[BC_Programmer]

your solution would be to acquire a windows CD with which to install the necessary driver software.

Or- if your computer was a OEM machine, you might have a i386 directory/folder on your computer that you can direct the installer to instead.

[Broni]

Optical drives don't need any extra drivers since Win 2000.

Try one of these:
1. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
or...
2. Download, and run Restore Missing CD Drive patch
Double click on downloaded file, and allow registry merge.
or...
3. Go to Device Manager, click a "+" sign next to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
You'll see two items:
- ATA Channel0 (or Primary Channel)
- ATA Channel1 (or Secondary Channel)
Right click on each of them, and click Uninstal. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[edgavin42]

Thanks for getting back to me. Broni, I tried the uninstall of the primary and secondary channels a few weeks ago as a result of reading what you advised someone else. It didn't solve the problem at that time. Thinking that I may have done the procedure improperly a few weeks ago, I tried it again this morning - no luck. Your first suggestion, sending me to Microsoft support was my next choice. Frankly, I'm lost with the directions given me there, and there's no indication of what their help will cost. I tried your second suggestion, i.e. download and run Restore Missing CD Drive Patch. I saved, to my documents folder, "cdgone.zip." There are three files: cdgone.reg, EditReg.reg, and Read Me.(I did "Read Me" but it didn't seem to tell me exactly how to proceed.) Going back to your directions, I looked for anything that told me to "allow registry merge," but could not see it. I'm trying to figure out what steps I've missed or what I'm just dumb about. I'm not even sure of what questions I should be asking you at this point. Should I have not "saved" but just "opened" cdgone.zip? At this point I'm thinking I need the kind of directions for a person who doesn't know what he's doing. Love that feeling of inadeqacy!

[patio]

Right clik cdgone.reg and select Merge...
Re-boot.

[Broni]

As for M$ page, all you need to do is to perform 4 steps listed at the end of that page.
Print them out, and you'll see, they're easy to follow.

[edgavin42]

Thanks Patio and Broni for your replies. I tried earlier today to right click cdgone.reg and all I found was the standard dropdown list of "open," "cut," "copy," "delete," "properties." "Merge" was not in the list. Still trying to figure what I did wrong with this. I printed that Microsoft page, but it's late and I'm weary, so I'll try what you suggest, Broni, tomorrow. Thanks again and I'll keep you posted. "M$" - that's a proper symbol, that is!

[patio]

The files may need to be extracted from the .zip.
You can view them but the merge option won't show up until you extract them to a folder...just pick a name and make a folder.
Try it this way and see....

[edgavin42]

 Greetings and salutations to Broni and Patio - Reading Patio's directions to extract the files from the zip file and then select "merge" worked like a charm. So, again, some raucous cheering for both of you: Broni for the "Restore Missing CD Drive Patch" suggestion, and Patio for clarifying the procedure for me. You both have been an enormous help. Thank you again, and I'll stop gushing now.

[patio]

Excellent news...and Kudos go to Broni for providing the fix...i just nudged it along a little bit.
Stop by anytime !

[edgavin42]

Here's the craziness now. My most recent CD with photos played normally; thus my cheering message to you. However, when I inserted any of the provious CD's that I made (all photos) I got this error message: "D:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function." With the latest CD, when I insert it, I hear all the familiar sounds of the CD going into drive, the autoplay flashlight scans, etc., and I can view all the photos. With any of my other CD's, after inserting them, I hear a little bit of whirring, the little light flashes a few times, then silence. Clicking on "My Computer," I see that the icon for the D drive has changed to show that a CD is in the tray, but then when I double click on that new icon, I get the error message. Any suggestions for this new wrinkle?

[Broni]

I'm glad, we fixed a little
Do you have Easy CD Creator on your computer?
If yes, read here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315350
If not...
Right click on the drive. Click Properties>Recording Tab
Make sure, there is a checkmark in "Enable CD Recording On This Drive" box.

[edgavin42]

I'm beginning to think that  if I express my gratitude too much, I'll jinx the outcome! At first I tried right-clicking the drive>Properties>Recording Tab, but I found no recording tab. So then I went to the Microsoft site, downloaded the update, and can now open my other CD's. Everything seems to have returned to normal and I have you to thank for that; I'm glad you're out there. I do enjoy problem-solving but this one was getting me down. Thanks again.