I have a Compaq desktop about 1 year old with Windows XP Home. The DVD burner that came with the comp. started acting funky so I purchased an external burner. Actually this is the second one - I returned the first one thinking it was the problem. Anyway, it installed OK, device manager says it's working properly, I have 2 burning programs that recognize it, and have burned two DVD's from .avi files with Nero. They are OK.

The DVD writer just will not show up in 'my computer', same problem I had with the first dvd writer that I bought. DVD movies won't play when I put them in, and data DVD's won't show at all. Same as the first one.

I've tried uninstalling from the device manager, unplugging and rebooting more than a few times.

Hope somebody can help!



Dang! I see there is another section for this type question. Hope a mod can move this for me.

Have you tried booting the computer with the drive plugged in?

Yes I tried that. I wonder if the registry isn't screwed up somehow. I hope not, I just reinstalled Windows about a month ago.

If I put a DVD movie in and go to control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disk management and right click the drive and select explore, I can watch the movie by clicking on the VTS file - so I know the dang thing is working!

I can also see the files on a data DVD the same way.

Not to be-little your problem but are you saying that it is limited to no icon under My Computer? (and/or Windows Explorer)?

In other words you can use the drive via Disk Management?

There is a general registry work around for Removable Media Drives that My Computer cannot detect but it will also most likely remove all third party DVD/CD software (or at least render it unusable until you reinstall it).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BF
C1-08002BE10318}

Highlight the CDRom Drive Key(s), delete the Values "UpperFilters" and/or
"LowerFilters"

Open Device Manager (Winkey-Break, or start/run, type 'sysdm.cpl / Hardware Tab)

Remove the entry for the cd device(s), then restart.

This work around assumes that the third party software has conflicted with the Windows drivers by placing those filters.

My apologies for wasting your time, first of all!

I suddenly remembered that I had Tweak UI installed, I installed it to stop autoplay every time I turned on one of my external h/d's. Sure enough, drive L was not ticked. Everything is now showing in 'my computer'!

Thanks for your efforts helping a complete bonehead.

No problem.

Thanks for the update and the thanks.

It will help others with the reminder of the Tweak UI function.

Let us know if we can help further in the future.