CD/DVD Driver missing on install  

Do what I did...put a .45 to your head and pull the trigger.

Once I got a retail disc made by Microsoft, not downloaded and burned from their site, my problem was solved.

I used the exact same hardware, changed no jumpers etc...

The first few posts were on the right track I think. Frostmourne on these forums suggested this fix and it worked for me:

The fix was to simply plug the drive into a different SATA slot on the motherboard. Apparently windows (or maybe it's the mobo) doesn't like it when certain devices are mixed on the same channel. What worked for me was to make a non-booting sata drive the ch. 2 master and the DVD drive the ch. 2 slave.

Good luck.

Well, I can now say that I have seen something simular with a bad burn. Only not with windows, but with linux. I bought some cheap dvd-r the other day, and burned two different linux disks. Both won't boot right. One worked right away, but a week later it had issues just like windows. It would boot up, but then when it's own system took over it could not find it's own disk, and had a message about needing drivers. So this problem seems to cross the OS boundry. Damn cheap disks anyway.

With that being said, there is a difference between a bad burn and a hardware problem. If the disk doesn't work right in other computers, it is the disk. If it works in most other computers but is a problem for one, it is probably a hardware issue.

And if you own a Gateway like me, it is your problem for buying a damn Gateway

CreeDo said:

The first few posts were on the right track I think. Frostmourne on these forums suggested this fix and it worked for me:

The fix was to simply plug the drive into a different SATA slot on the motherboard. Apparently windows (or maybe it's the mobo) doesn't like it when certain devices are mixed on the same channel. What worked for me was to make a non-booting sata drive the ch. 2 master and the DVD drive the ch. 2 slave.

Good luck.

My drive is IDE and not SATA (but the hard drive is SATA). If I had the extra cash I would buy a new SATA drive and try it, but can't do that right now.

Hi Guys, this is my first post so forgive me if anything is not according to standard..
I had the problem of a missing CD/DVD driver when trying to install windows 7 32bit (ultimate and pro,etc) so here is the fix that I figured out. It takes a bit of time but it’s worked on all versions and on the 64bit so this is what you need to do.
1. Partition Hdd you are going to use into 3 partitions
a. 1st partition make 10gig and copy the Windows 7 CD files to this drive (using a working pc explore the Win 7 Disc and copy and paste everything to this drive remember to show hidden files)
b. 2nd partition makes the size whatever you want for the windows installation.
c. 3rd partition make the size whatever you want and copy the chipset drivers for the clean install here.
2. Boot up to the windows 7 setup with the disc and you should now be able to install windows without problems to the 2nd partition **DONT TOUCH THE FIRST PARTITION UNTIL WINDOWS HAS FINISHED THE SETUP AND IS WORKING**
3. That’s it enjoy windows 7

Nice idea Gab. I ended up installing from a flash drive to work around it. I wish future installs just came on flash drives by default, it seems so much cleaner than hassling with DVDs and windows doesn't seem to need 1000 different drivers to read from USB. Might have been faster too.

Any ideas on my disappearing DVD drive? Despite the solved status of this thread, it's still an issue :/
Missing optical drive... none of the fixes work

Hi Creeedo try this:

Press Windows R, type regedit and press enter.
2. Open the Registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. In the right pane, right-click UpperFilters, and then click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the UpperFilters registry entry.
5. In the right pane, right-click LowerFilters, and then click Delete.
6. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the LowerFilters registry entry.
7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

Let me know if it helped

Gab - no luck, found that fix and others via google.

The drive is currently working fine and I'm gonna try burning a full 4GB dvd for the first time. Looks like it's gonna finish ok.

Windows sees it and uses it fine, but after a few minutes or hours it just... disappears. Sometimes right in the middle of use.

Some cord coming loose? I rechecked them all and they seem fairly snug. Some power issue? It's got a molex in, the sata cable, plug a smaller power thing that goes into the pata-to-sata adapter. I guess that's a mini molex or something. Without all of them the drive doesn't function.

I dunno if this is useful... in event viewer I can see when it disappears. There's an error from the service control manager. The error isn't helpful, just says "The following boot-start or system-start drivers failed to load: cd-rom"