CD/DVD Drives Disappear from My Computer in Windows XP

[IllinoisWayne]

I built a computer for a friend of mine about a year ago.  Just recently, the two DVD/CD drives stopped working.  They do not appear under My Computer, but if I look in CMOS, they show up as Master and Slave on the Primary IDE. 

When I look in Device Manager (Windows XP Home SP3), the Primary and Secondary IDE Channels each has two entries, and all four entries have a yellow circle with an exclamation mark in it.  I deleted those four entries, rebooted the computer, and they reinstalled, but still no good - the yellow circles reappeared.  I have tried running in Safe Mode, and still cannot access the drives.  I also reinstalled the chipset drivers on the Asus motherboard.

It appears that maybe something is corrupted in Windows, but I’m not sure how to fix it.  I put in the original Windows CD and went to the Repair option, and at that point, using the Command Prompt, I can see both drives are there.

Any idea what is going on and how I can get this working again.

[Broni]

Right click on any Channel, click "Properties", then "Advanced settings" tab. Does it show PIO mode?

[IllinoisWayne]

My Primary IDE Channel (I have nothing connected to the Secondary Channel but it has the same symptoms), Devices 0 and 1 both show a Device Type of Auto Detect, Transfer Mode of DMA if Available, and Current Transfer Mode as Not Applicable.

Not sure what PIO Mode is all about, but I tried that setting and shut off Auto Detect.  After booting back up, everything had changed back to what I listed above.

[patio]

In Device Manager right clik the CDRom drive and select uninstall/remove...
You will recieve a warning...ignore it and re-boot.