DVDRW drive disappears - can't fix via registry.

This is my first Windows 7 build, having upgraded from XP just 3 months ago. The DVD drive is the only component carried over from my previous PC. This new build is a dual-boot system, running XP on a separate drive.

In Windows 7, the drive is always present in Explorer, until I attempt to erase or write to a disc. The point at which it happens is random, but always shortly after the process begins. This has been happening ever since initial installation of Windows 7.

Different burning apps gave different results:

BurnAware Free resulted in a BSOD when finalizing a DVD-RW. Yes, I could have put this whole post in the BSOD section, but it only happens with this one app, which is the one I used all the time on XP.

CDBurnerXP made my system lag badly when attempting to erase or burn, and it remained laggy until I rebooted.

Ashampoo made the DVD drive disappear when trying to finalize a DVD-RW, sometimes earlier. It also made the hard drive that was was sharing the same SATA channel disappear too. I disconnected the DVD-RW and put it on a GSATA channel by itself. Now its just the DVD drive that disappears.

ImgBurn does manage to write a DVD-R and a DVD-RW, but sometimes results in the same problems as Ashampoo. But it doesn't write TS files to make a native movie DVD, unlike BurnAware or Ashampoo.

InfraRecorder never made any progress with erasing. "Started to erase disc in real write mode" with the drive light blinking as you'd expect but the gauge never filled one bit and neither did the buffer gauge. After 10 minutes it was obvious it was never going to get anywhere. The Cancel button was greyed out. Had to reboot.

DeepBurner completed a full erase at the disc's native speed of 2x. Successfully completed a burn.
However, tried a 2nd time after a reboot and the burn stalled at 7%, and the drive disappeared. Had to reboot to get the drive back again. A quick erase at the slowest speed always seems to work, never a full erase. A 3rd burn attempt at max speed worked. But repeating the quick erase and max speed burn failed on the 4th attempt at 5% into the burn. As usual it stalled and the drive disappered. After rebooting, and doing another quick erase, I tried another burn, this time filling half the disc at max speed, stalled at 67%.

I opened Regedit and navigated to the entry shown below suggested by Microsoft to fix a possible cause.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Class
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Class
\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

UpperFilters and Lowerfilters are both missing, so obviously I cannot use the suggested fix from Microsoft. When I click "Properties" on the left pane, I get a pop-up window saying "Properties cannot be opened. An error is preventing this key from being opened. Details: Access is denied."

I have tried unsinstalling the drive via Device Manager and rebooting but that changed nothing, so its unlikely to be a driver problem. And everything works okay in XP, so it can't be a hardware error.

I would suspect a Windows 7 OS problem, and likely it will take a reinstall to fix.

However, try running one of the disc programs as Administrator and see if it makes any difference. Probably won't but worth a try.

I use Nero but I have also used CDBurnerXP and it did not cause any system problems or slowdowns, however, I don't use erase or RW media. Same with Imgburn that I've used to create DVD ISO's.

A comment on using RW media. RW media is the most unreliable disc media. It is known to lose data or format. If you have not had any problem with the RW's or writing method you are in the minority. Packet writing method is also the worst method. I have done a lot of optical disc support over the years (I started doing support on the Dell forums in 2002) and this was the most common disc problem.

I've not had many problems with RW media (on XP). The only errors that occur happen when a disc has been re-used more times than can generally be expected. I've been using some RW discs for over 10 years.

I just bought a pack of 25 Verbatim RW discs, and the first one worked first time in XP, but not 7.

Unfortunately, running the disc programs as Administrator in Windows 7 has not made any difference.

I have read similar accounts of the problem I have. One guy tried a complete re-install of Windows 7 but the problem of a disappearing drive still manifested itself. My problem has existed since the first day of an all-new installation, so I would be quite surprised if repeating the procedure would yield any results.

Some of the software he mentions, CDBurnerXP and Imgburn do not need installing in compatibility mode as they are Win 7 compatible.

As this happened from the beginning with Win 7, either a bad Win 7 install or some system driver or chipset driver was not installed since it all works OK in XP. If it didn't work OK in XP I would then consider some hardware issue.

The user stated it works OK in XP (he notes he has a dual boot XP/Win 7) so the drive is probably good. However, check for any firmware updates, as there may be an update needed for Win 7.

Another possibility, that I just recalled, is Win 7 incorporates some CD/DVD burning functions. I've seen cases of the Win 7 burning functions interfering with CD/DVD burning. Disabling the Win 7 burning options usually fixes burning problems with a 3rd party burning program. I no longer have Win 7 so I can't tell you exactly how to disable it.

When the RW disks first came out, I thought "Oh how neat, that I can use a CD just like a floppy disk".
Well, it didn't take long for the idiosyncrasies of the RW disks to rear their ugly heads and I had to revise my thoughts about using RW's.

One problem that I found almost immediately was that if I'd write my Utilities, which I use on every service call, to a RW disk, I could read it just fine on the drive that wrote it, but not necessarily on any other drive.
[years ago that was a problem with SOME floppy drives too, when they would get out of alignment.]

Now I only use DVD-R or DVD-R-DL disks and I have no more compatibility problems. I think I just gave away my last RW disks, and was glad to get rid of them. Too much trouble!

One more thing I do, as a matter of course, because I use my DVD drive so much, is that I replace my DVD drive once a year. I downgrade my old DVD drive to a lesser important PC, where I don't usually write DVD's.

So that's my one and only suggestion..."Get rid of the RW's and use only basic DVD's."
The basic DVD's are cheaper too!
(and don't use Multisession when burning DVD's. That too can become problematical )

Cheers Mate and Happy Computing,
TechnoMage