Unable to see empty drives in Explorer

I have tried every conceivable way to get Explorer to let me view my empty drives under Computer. They show when there's a disk in them. They show in the reading pane, they just won't show up as empty drives in the Nav pane. I have tried deleting the upper and lower filters in the registry. Un checking the "Hide empty drives" in Folder options, adding a (1) to the registry settting "Hide drives with no Media". That setting seems to change itself back to (0) all the time. I am totally at a loss getting the empty drives to show themselves in the Nav pane.

Bit confused with what you are trying to say. DVD rom or hard drives?

Hard drives: Have the drives been formatted? Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disc Management. You should see them in there. Right click/format.

They are cd/dvd rom drives. One is the built in burner the other one is an external burner that I use for copying. The drives both show in the reading pane. They just won't show in the Navigation pane when they are empty. They show when they have a disk in them under Computer in the Nav pane, but the minute I remove the disk the letter goes with it like it doesn't exist.Do you see that both burners don't show up under computer when they are empty.

Mine does the same thing. There might be a tweak to do what you want.

Thanx guys. Not really what I had in mind, but good to know that it does work like that. I tried and they both went over and labeled as cd drives. Thanks to both of you.

In the folder options menu, tab "View", is an option to hide empty drives. I think it's enabled by default, maybe that is what you are looking for?

Thaliur said:

In the folder options menu, tab "View", is an option to hide empty drives. I think it's enabled by default, maybe that is what you are looking for?

That was one of the first things I did was to uncheck that box. Needless to say it didn't work and I 'm totally baffled as to why it doesn't. There was even a registry setting that I modified called something like "No Media Empty Drive" and it didn't work either. Very strange. It's like Windows is just ignoring these commands.