Recently I have noticed that many HP (and other manufacturer) laptops have been having an issue with dvd drives on occasion.  They will be working from day one and all of a sudden quit working but still have power. As long as the drive it self hasn’t physically failed we aren’t out of luck. A few simple steps and you can have the driver working like new.

To start out check device manager. Expand your cd/dvd drives and check to make sure it is showing up. If they are but you see a yellow exclamation point like the image below. Then we can perform the registry fix.

Now before we get to the registry fix I have a disclaimer. The registry is a very dangerous part of the Windows operation system. This is the tool where all of your hardware, windows, profile, software, etc settings are stored. One wrong move and your computer may not boot any longer. With that being said, perform this fix at your own risk. The author, and pixelatedgeek.com cannot, and will not be held responsible for any computer damage or data loss incurring as a result of this fix. This is just a suggestion, results are not guaranteed.

The Fix:

Open up device manager and uninstall the dvd/cd driver (do not scan for hardware changes or allow windows to install a driver at this point)

Open up your registry editor and then navigate to the following path.

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

First delete the UpperFilters (if any)

Next delete the LowerFilters (if any)

And finally reboot your system and allow Windows to reinstall the driver itself. This should resolve the issue.

It seems as if Windows cache’s the driver that is used for the dvd/cd drivers making an uninstall of the driver with a scan for new hardware absolutely useless. By removing the registry values it seems to remove the cache and tends to start from scratch with a new driver.

Tags: hardware, hewlett packard, pc