Drive letters not assigning to DVDROM or external drives on notebook

[hillsdave]

I have an ASUS K52Jc running Windows 7 Pro 64bit. My DVDROM and external drives don't show up in My Computer, but are visible in Disk Management with no drive letter assigned. When I manually assign a drive letter it shows up for a second then disappears. Have also tried to assign a drive letter using DISKPART rom the cmd line to no avail. Does anyone have any ideas ?

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Try inserting a CD/DVD into the drive? Does it show up with a drive letter now?

Regards,
Golden

 

[hillsdave]

no it doesn't

 

[jumanji]

Hi hillsdave,

Try this.

Download v 0.8.1 of the drivecleanup.zip from Drive Tools for Windows.

Unzip it to a folder, say drivecleanup.

You will have two folders Win32 and x64 each containing DriveCleanup.exe for 32 bit and 64 bit respectively.

Since you have a 64 bit system, you will use the DriveCleanup.exe in the x64 folder.

Remove all USB storage devices from your system (except your Keyboard and mouse) and reboot.

Right click on the DriveCleanup.exe in the x64 folder and run as administrator.

After the clean up act, reboot and plug in your USB devices. The USB devices will be installed afresh. Check whether these get a drive letter that sticks. ( What you have done is to remove all non-present devices and drive letters associated with them and start with a clean slate.)

 

[hillsdave]

Tried what you suggested, still no change, drive visible in Disk Management, but manually assigned drive letter disappears almost immediately. Thanks for the suggestion though Jumanji.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Can you succesfully assign (or reassign) drive letters to usb disks/sticks?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Same problem in Safe Mode?
Same problem on Clean Startup? http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html . Revert back to normal boot after testing!

 

[hillsdave]

no, same thing happens

 

[Kaktussoft]

no, same thing happens

Are you refering to post #6 or #7 (or both)?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Post screenshot of disk management please
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[hillsdave]

no, same thing happens

Are you refering to post #6 or #7 (or both)?

Post #6

 

[jumanji]

You may go ahead with Kaktussoft's instruction/s.

I am just curious to know as to when this problem started. If none of the suggestions work, you may try to restore your system to a point before this problem surfaced.

 

[hillsdave]

ok, both usb & dvd working in safe mode, still had to assign drive letters manually though.

 

[Kaktussoft]

ok, both usb & dvd working in safe mode, still had to assign drive letters manually though.

View attachment 272264

And usb & dvd still have drive letters now in normal boot? Can you change the drive letters now as well? If not... are the reverted back to previous drive letters?

 

[hillsdave]

No, in normal boot problem still exists

 

[Kaktussoft]

No, in normal boot problem still exists

So you were able to make it work in safe mode. usb and dvd has drive letters then. After that you did reboot normally. Drive letters were gone then? Reboot to safe mode... still gone?

Second test: Boot to safe mode and give usb and dvd a drive letter. Reboot again to safe mode. Drive letters are still active and working?

 

[Kaktussoft]

In safe mode (after assigning drive letters succesfully) enter "command prompt":

reg  export  HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices  d:\safeboot.reg

In normal boot mode enter "command prompt":

reg  export  HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices  d:\normalboot.reg

Post d:\safeboot.reg and d:\normalboot.reg. You may delete the 2 files afterwards.

 

[hillsdave]

No, in normal boot problem still exists

So you were able to make it work in safe mode. usb and dvd has drive letters then. After that you did reboot normally. Drive letters were gone then? Reboot to safe mode... still gone?

second test: Boot to safe mode and give usb and dvd a drive letter. reboot again to safe mode. drive letters are still active and working?

1. Assigned in safe mode, working. Rebooted in normal mode, drive letters gone, rb in safe mode, still gone.

2. Assigned in safe mode, working. rb in safe mode, still working.

 

[Kaktussoft]

No, in normal boot problem still exists

So you were able to make it work in safe mode. usb and dvd has drive letters then. After that you did reboot normally. Drive letters were gone then? Reboot to safe mode... still gone?

second test: Boot to safe mode and give usb and dvd a drive letter. reboot again to safe mode. drive letters are still active and working?

1. Assigned in safe mode, working. Rebooted in normal mode, drive letters gone, rb in safe mode, still gone.

2. Assigned in safe mode, working. rb in safe mode, still working.

Boot normal boot and safe mode use registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices for drive letters. Something in normal boot removes them?! So win7 can read/write/delete to that key.

You logged in as same user in safe mode an normal mode?

It looks like something is monitoring registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and does nasty trick.

Try a clean startup http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html same problem?

 

[hillsdave]

View attachment normalboot.reg
View attachment safeboot.reg