so winxp fails to boot normally? and winxp safe mode shows dvd-drive.. cool. Does it also display files on DVD? then dvd reader/writer is working fine. But then you can but from dvd as well (if you have a bootable dvd). Please confirm. Bios sometimes doesn't show the device, that does happen on some systems.
Do you want to keep win7? and winxp?
win7/vista have restore points let's say a checkpoint in time. It's mantained by a special service on win7/vista even in "recovery environment". So you can rollback in time system critical things like exe, dll, registry etc. At every well written installation, hotfixes, updates a restore point will be made and you can rollback by "system restore". check points contain the OLD information in case a block is overwrtitten.
But .... as you started winxp as well (also has this restore points but works totally different) and probably accessed the win7 partition the restore points are invalid and empty! Please don't assign a driveletter to the win7 partition (in winxp) and don't access it!
But you can in win7 show the installed updates and sort them by date. uninstall the last updates you think that made your dvd invisible
nyc. its showing nothing totally in the dvd drive.at first it had disabled both the usd and dvd drive then i restored and the sub was back that is after choosing a restore point before the updates
what is nyc?
So winxp safe mode sees the drive but not the files? And you can't boot from DVD. correct?
I think winxp safe mode sees the dvd drive as a sort of ghost (it was there so he displays it). But because bios doesn't detect it, winxp/linux/mac/win7/vista don't know you have a dvd device!
The updates are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with the issue.
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