I have XP Pro SP2 with 2 SATA H/D's and a CD a DVD drive installed.
The other day , while attempting to install an Update for MS Word I was unable to access the CD Drive . On further checking I noticed that neither the CD or the DVD drive was showing in Windows Explorer and , on further checking , both drives also failed to appear in Device Manager.
This was also the case in Safe Mode.
When I booted into the BIOS , neither drive showed there .
As I have experienced this symptom about a year ago I remembered a MS recovery process for this problem which involved removing the UpperFilters and LowerFilters entries in the Registry and then re-booting.
No LowerFilter entries were found in the relevant section of the Registry but there was an UpperFilter entry which contained the phrase "GEARAspWDM".
I deleted this and re-booted.
Although this had cured the problem the last time I had experienced it , ( although I can't remember exactly what had appeared there then ) , it did not do so this time.
I then decided to re-install a BootIt Image File of the C: drive which I had created and inserted the BootIt CD into the CD Drive ! - Strangely enough this drive worked and thus recovered the Image File of the C:drive which had been created before this problem had occurred.
On re-booting the drives now once more appeared and were again accessible.
However , after several subsequent re-boots to update data to the recovered C: DRIVE , the CD/DVD drives again were missing as before.
I eventually switched the PC off last night in the above condition but , when I turned it on this morning , the CD/DVD drives were again visible and accessible.
I checked the relevent Registry entries out of curiosity and found no reference to either UpperFilters and/or LowerFilters and no mention of the data entry "GEARAspWDM"
So far I have not re-booted the PC as it was by doing so yesterday that brought the return of the CD Drive problem.
Any comments on this would be of great interest.
Incidentally , the phrase "GEARAspWDM" does still appear in the Registry but not in the path "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-...etc....} mentioned in the MS Troubleshoot advice- if that is significant .
The other day , while attempting to install an Update for MS Word I was unable to access the CD Drive . On further checking I noticed that neither the CD or the DVD drive was showing in Windows Explorer and , on further checking , both drives also failed to appear in Device Manager.
This was also the case in Safe Mode.
When I booted into the BIOS , neither drive showed there .
As I have experienced this symptom about a year ago I remembered a MS recovery process for this problem which involved removing the UpperFilters and LowerFilters entries in the Registry and then re-booting.
No LowerFilter entries were found in the relevant section of the Registry but there was an UpperFilter entry which contained the phrase "GEARAspWDM".
I deleted this and re-booted.
Although this had cured the problem the last time I had experienced it , ( although I can't remember exactly what had appeared there then ) , it did not do so this time.
I then decided to re-install a BootIt Image File of the C: drive which I had created and inserted the BootIt CD into the CD Drive ! - Strangely enough this drive worked and thus recovered the Image File of the C:drive which had been created before this problem had occurred.
On re-booting the drives now once more appeared and were again accessible.
However , after several subsequent re-boots to update data to the recovered C: DRIVE , the CD/DVD drives again were missing as before.
I eventually switched the PC off last night in the above condition but , when I turned it on this morning , the CD/DVD drives were again visible and accessible.
I checked the relevent Registry entries out of curiosity and found no reference to either UpperFilters and/or LowerFilters and no mention of the data entry "GEARAspWDM"
So far I have not re-booted the PC as it was by doing so yesterday that brought the return of the CD Drive problem.
Any comments on this would be of great interest.
Incidentally , the phrase "GEARAspWDM" does still appear in the Registry but not in the path "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-...etc....} mentioned in the MS Troubleshoot advice- if that is significant .