I've had some serious issues before on my computer, most of them because it is such a mess of different parts, but the latest issue tops the cake. I'm going to be through in the background and in describing this so that hopefully someone can see something I can't, or maybe I'll just be able to provide a bit of entertainment to someone's day.

A while back I let my sister use my computer to rip some songs using Windows Media Player, and I had previously used it to rip, so I was quite surprised when I found that, seemingly randomly, the computer started getting the BSoD during the ripping process. It appears as though something in the ripping process, at some point in said process, is the cause of the BSoD. I have never been able to solve that problem, and may never get the chance to, but it seemed to go away when she used iTunes to rip the songs instead.

Now comes the current issue. Since switching to iTunes for ripping, given that she has an iPod, it made it easier anyway, we have not had any occurrence of that issue. Thus, when I get a Sansa MP3 player, I had completely forgot about the issue, and because iTunes rips to .M4A, which is not recognized by the player, I decided to use Windows Media Player, having completely forgotten about the previous problems. Well, I rip one CD fine, then another, but as I'm ripping the third, BSoD pops up. Suddenly my issues with Windows Media Player all come flashing back.

'Well, no bother' I think. I restart the computer, and go back to my Windows Media Player, decide I'll take a look at how far through it got before BSoD came to kill my fun. 4:17 into the fourth track. Not so bad, I figure, because the music is already fading out by that point in the song, so, remembering what I did a few months back so that I could at least finish the CD, I click rip again.

A few months back, this was an inconvenience because it required me to reboot my computer and restart ripping in the middle of a CD, which was doable, but not preferable. Now when I click the rip button, I get the shock of my life - well my day at least - I get this
"A CD drive is needed in order to rip music from CDs."
"What the Hell is that supposed to mean?!", I think to myself. Well, thinking that it means what it says, I click My Computer, and check for my CD drives. Gone. Not there. Poof. Vanished. Disappeared. Dropped off the face of my monitor.

I turn off the computer. Turn on the computer. Turn off the computer. Open computer. Check connections. Turn on computer. Turn off the computer. Clean dust out of computer, off of video card, memory card, sound card, off of fan blades, off of heat sinks, off of wires, out of connection ports. Turn on the computer. Check BIOS. Yep, they're there. Turn off computer. Turn on computer. Check for driver updates. None. Scream. Seriously consider removing valuable, newer parts and smashing the rest. Seriously. Start up Mozilla, come here. And here I am.

Can anyone help me?

Is it listed under the Device Manager?

If so right click it and choose Uninstall then reboot.

Yes it is. I'll do that and be back in a flash.

Okay, so now I definitely don't have CD drives.

What do I do next?

When you restarted did you not get: "New Hardware Found"?

No,not that I'm aware of, although I think maybe I'll reboot again, just to make sure.

You have 2 CD drives?

Are they both IDE?

Are they both on the same IDE channel?

Secondary I presume?

Well, one's a CD/DVD reader, one's a CD/DVD burner. And... thanks to your superb knowledge, plus some searching to find what error code 39 meant, they work!

Thank you very much, I was almost positive my plight would end only with a mallet and a pile of silicon.

Is this what you did?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

This is often caused by burning software. It also may recur.

If you continue to get BSOD check out this:

BSOD
--------------------------------------------------
Read the post HERE for a few diagnostic ideas and post back any relevant data.