sorry you are having problems i had this trouble with a lg external dvd/cd drive and tried all of my suggestions i have posted and it turned out to be hardware failure and i had to replace with a new one no comfort i now but have you considered this?
how long has this machine been up and running? maybe consider a system restore before the time you had problems? its also good to run the sfc scan several times, also consider opening a new user account with administration rights to see if the problem exists in a new user.
Almost a breakthrough:
I was at a friend's house this morning discussing this and his son showed me an 'under the bonnet' configuration screen that shows various Autoplay statuses and I felt sure that this was what I needed! Once home I went to check this and keyed in the relevant command he used: GPEDIT.MSC.
No screen. Apparently (searching this forum for GPEDIT.MSC) this utility is not available in Home Premium...
I understand that the GPEDIT.MSC screen is a front end for the registry and another helpful member here said on the above thread that he would try and help Home Premium users to do what they needed to do in the registry, so I thought I might do a separate thread.
In the meantime, many thanks brianzion!
This is the "group policy editor" administration service, which is one of those possible causes (and solutions) for disruption of normal autoplay behavior as mentioned in that Microsoft article I alluded to earlier.
I didn't realize it was not available in Home Premium.
Nevertheless, it is of course possible that it really could be a hardware failure as was suggested. It seems unlikely, though, as you have TWO drives and both of them now fail to do what they both used to do when a disc is inserted. Do you know if they are IDE drives, or SATA drives?
I, too, have lost autoplay in the past. I inevitably decided it was due to Registry corruption, as it usually came 6 months to a year after I'd been happily running the previous install of WinXP (and once, Win7).
I just took it as the motivation and opportunity to do a "fresh install" of Windows. And always, it was that fresh install which magically "brought autoplay back to life" on the very same hardware that had been failing previously with that old Windows.
If you take a "system image"of your current system you can always "instantly restore" your current system if you do try a fresh install and it still doesn't fix things. But if the fresh install DOES fix things, then you just have to assign blame for the current problem to "detritus" in the Registry and move on with completing the reinstall of the rest of your application software.
Anyway, you really don't have much to lose except some time to try out this idea. Take a "system image" for recovery, along with a data backup (so that you can restore your data into the new Windows if you need to) and do a format/install from scratch. Then see if autoplay on both drives now works.
(a) If yes, just learn from the experience and complete the rest of your application software reinstall and restore your data. You've got autoplay back, though you had to reinstall Windows to get it.
(b) If no, restore the "system image" and you're no worse off than when you started.
I solved it!
After extensive Googling I came across this article:
Fix Windows 7 AutoPlay Dialog Box Missing or Not Appear, Display and Pop Up « My Digital Life
I wasted a lot of time in the Registry checking and re-checking the AutoRun stuff referred to, but the breakthrough for me was section 2, viz:
"2. Ensure that Shell Hardware Detection service is running
Type service.msc in Start Search to run Services console. Locate Shell Hardware Detection, and ensure that the “Service Status” is Running, and “Startup Type” is Automatic.
Else, start the service and change the Startup Type setting accordingly."
This service "Provides notifications for AutoPlay hardware events".
Mine was set to Manual and not running!! I coudn't have changed this as I didn't know what or where it was, ergo it must have been changed by a software installation, virus or MS update. I got my NOD32 to scan every nook and cranny of my system, nothing was amiss. So I guess this must remain a mystery.
At least we should all be able to help the next poor soul that finds this happening for no apparent reason!
My thanks to all those that chipped in to help.
Excellent work, Dr. Watson!I solved it!
After extensive Googling I came across this article:
Fix Windows 7 AutoPlay Dialog Box Missing or Not Appear, Display and Pop Up « My Digital Life
I wasted a lot of time in the Registry checking and re-checking the AutoRun stuff referred to, but the breakthrough for me was section 2, viz:
"2. Ensure that Shell Hardware Detection service is running
Type service.msc in Start Search to run Services console. Locate Shell Hardware Detection, and ensure that the “Service Status” is Running, and “Startup Type” is Automatic.
Else, start the service and change the Startup Type setting accordingly."
This service "Provides notifications for AutoPlay hardware events".
Mine was set to Manual and not running!! I couldn't have changed this as I didn't know what or where it was, ergo it must have been changed by a software installation, virus or MS update. I got my NOD32 to scan every nook and cranny of my system, nothing was amiss. So I guess this must remain a mystery.
This mysterious symptom, and resolution, is tied to exactly that subject of AutoPlay I alluded to back in my original post, when I asked if you'd installed any "intrusive" multi-media software product lately that involved CD/DVD, like something from CyberLink or Nero or some other player.
I've had similar loss-of-autoplay symptoms in the past myself, as I described earlier, and a re-install of Windows has always cured it. I attributed that "solution" to overcoming a Registry corruption or takeover associated with some previously installed multi-media product. But in fact it might also be that installation of a multi-media product could have stopped the service (for unknown reason) and it did not get restarted. Certainly it's not "Registry corruption" as such, but it's clearly something "permanent" until you restart the service and reset it to "automatic".
So your factual discovery regarding the "local shell hardware detection" service, and its critical tie-in to autoplay hardware devices... well that now sounds like the real explanation all along (for me, I mean). Don't know why or how it became "stopped" and in manual mode for you, and certainly it's running and automatic for me right now on my own machine, but it's very likely I suppose that in my old situations had I known about this possible explanation I could have easily checked it and activated it (if it had for some reason stopped, as it did for you) if that was the answer.
Anyway, excellent find! Good information to be shared, and stored away in your "bag of tricks".
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