CD/E Drive Missing on Vista Home Premium

[BAFFLED]

Why would the E drive suddenly disappear from the device manager and the machine (like a ghost)? We tried all suggestions: bios, filters, registries, cleaning drives, you name it. We even wiped everything off and reloaded windows and while windows was loading it appeared and the cd door opened normally but as soon as Vista reared it's head, the door would no longer open and it stopped working and completely disappeard again. Any ideas? All the equipment is the same as it came from the store. Nothing has been added or taken away and it all operated fine until a couple of months ago. It is an HP Pavilion dv9000. HELP..

[onedragon505]

Dear Baffled,

I had something like that happen to me as well. I am running Vista Home Premium on a Dell XPS M1330. Every so often my DVD optical drive disappears as well. I called the Dell support and they explained that sometimes when there is a software upgrade it affects the devices (in my case my DVD drive). Whatever upgrade it was that would affect my DVD drive, I had no idea. However, this is what Dell support did that helped me the first two times. I took copious notes and have been able to correct my problem, although I'm not sure whether it will apply to an HP. Essentially what needs to be done is to delete a parameter that is keeping the OS from recognizing the device (in my case "Upper Filters") and uninstalling the DVD drive, then rebooting. The steps I take:

1. Run regedit
2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/
(4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318
3. Find Upper Filters
4. Right click on Upper Filters and select Delete Upper Filters
5. Click on Start and go to Computer
6. Right click on Computer and select Properties
7. Click on Device Manager
8. Go to DVD/CD-ROM drives
9. Right click on your DVD drive device and select Uninstall
10. Reboot the computer

After you reboot, your computer will reinstall your DVD drive. As I indicated, this has worked time and again for my Dell computer. I am not sure where on the HP your device information is.