On Friday, April 03, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Harry Wilshusen
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Gateway 840GM running XP. It has a Multi-format
>DVD+-RW drive (E) and a DVD rom drive(F).
>
>In MY COMPUTER neither E nor F is listed.
>
>It's been several months since I've used either so not
>sure when it started.
>
>Some help would be appreciated so I can install tax
>software.


Loosing the ability to see or use CD and DVD drives is
a common problem with Win2k, WinXP, and Vista. It can
happen after an official Microsoft update or after you
uninstall CD/DVD burning programs. (See the Microsoft KB
article at <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/EN-US/>.

Here's the Registry fix described in the Microsoft article.
I don't see that you have anything to loose by trying this.
It worked for me and it didn't cause any side effects.
I figure there's at least a fifty-fifty chance that you have
this problem and the registry fix will solve it.

Open Regedit (use the Start, Run menu) and navigate to

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFCl-087002BEl0318}

(Note that HKLM is short for HKey_LOCAL_MACHINE.)

In the left pane of the Regedit window, highlite this key by left
clicking (once) on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFCl-087002BEl0318}.

In the right pane of the Regedit viewer you'll find two subkeys
called "UpperFilters" & "LowerFilters". Delete the values for
these subkeys. (For example, right click on Upperfilters and
choose Modify from the menu that appears. In the small data
window that appears, drag your cursor to highlite everything
(all the numbers) and hit the delete key. You should be left
only with 0000. Do the same thing for Lowerfilters. Close
Regedit and reboot the computer so that the changes that you
made to the registry take effect.

This problem is common enough that recent versions of Nero
burning software install a utility that runs every time you
boot. This "filter check" detects and corrects the upper and
lower filter problem.

Regards,
Bill 

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