Windows 7: USB DVD drive not showing

I have a Dell Inspiron 1012 running Windows 7 starter and It is not recognising my USB DVD drive when I plug it in. I have tried one solution which required me to delete upper and lower filters in the registry but this did not work as I had no entry for lower filters. Can anyone provide the solution.

You shouldn't have to touch anything in the system registry itself. If you start the system up without the drive plugged in and then go to plug it in do you see any prompting by Windows showing a new device has been added?

If the drive is working place a dvd in that has data on it such as the 7 recovery disk or movie and go into the Disk Management tool. Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage

Once there go to the menu bar option and click the rescan option followed by scrolling the list of drives displayed. Under Removable if you see an unmarked volume right click on that to use the "change drive letter" option to see if that work. If the drive is initialized you should immediately notice a flashing popup showing the drive is working and now mounted as a logical drive.

Also remember to try the drive itself on different usb ports in case one has a problem.

Thanks for your reply but its not possible to carry out your solution as the drive is not showing anywhere in the system and I cant get windows to recognise it. The drive works in another laptop and all USB sockets work. The drive is taking power and lights up but is not showing in widows explorer, computer, device manager or disk manager or anywhere else you should be able to see it.

When you are in the DM you can go upto the menu bar>View and select the show all hidden devices option which may then show the drive in the DM. It could also be something as simple as enabling USB support in the bios setup you need to take care of if the drive otherwise seems to be working normally.

The one oddity I ran into with any usb devices which can leave you blind sided at times is the brand! I found that one out with flash drives where a better brand of drive simply would not be recognized and work on an old XP case. Put in another brand and you're all set! Try two other brands and no go once again.

All flash drives were in perfect working order and the usb ports were all good. You could be running into something very similar with the make of usb optical drive you have there where you may find the next brand works like a champ. I suspect that while the ports and drive all seem good just like the flash drives were the draw on the port itself or what the port is supplying could be another thing you are running into with that particular laptop.

In other words either the drive is pulling the port down on that laptop or the port is inadequate for the drive. It's taking power alright just a little too much maybe? Or you might have to actually go into the Control Panel>Devices and Printers to select "add a device" from the File drop down options there to see Windows install the drive for you to then be made available. Then you would Windows auto search for the drivers it needs.

I was about to bring out the possibility of insufficient power from the USB port for your drive. This could be one possible cause.

You can try an Y cable that connect to two USB ports on the PC for increased power. In fact most USB DVD writers and BD writers are supplied with such a cable.

I wish I had one of those for the last illuminated keyboard I had until finding out it had a hidden defect when first bought new until it gave out one day. That one would pull quite a bit on a port like I suspect could very well be happening with the optical drive there.

The other thing mentioned as well is that the ports simply may not supply enough for some reason like the other laptop does. That would easily explain why it works on one and not the other. Plus the one you have there is a Netbook according the page at Dell found for it. Inspiron Mini 10 (1012) Netbook - Long Battery Life & Colorful | Dell

A regular fuller sized laptop would supply adequate power since people plug printers and other usb devices in on a regular basis while netbooks as a rule are the newer kid on the block so to speak and are meant mainly to be a carry everwhere convenience rather then a workstation at home, work, or school. Kind of puts you in a bind in that sense.