Windows 10 and missing DVD drives- the FIX!

imaginACTION_films wrote on 6/13/2016, 12:22 AM
Hi All,
I had Windows 10 install itself recently and it wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I needed to burn a DVD. Surprise - no DVD burner available, even though my BluRay burner had been working perfectly until the unrequested Win 10 update.

I found the solution.
Go to Device manager and uninstall all of the IDE controllers. There were four on my system. Then restart the computer and the DVD drive should appear in both Device Manager and Windows Explorer.

The Microsoft Help advice is to do some stuff with the DVD icon in Device Manager, but if there's no DVD icon you can't do it. This reminds me of the old joke about the two guys flying in a helicopter near Seattle. Let me know if you want the rest of the joke...

Hope this saves some angst!!
Cheers
David

Comments

Tim Stannard wrote on 6/14/2016, 11:32 AM
"This reminds me of the old joke about the two guys flying in a helicopter near Seattle. "
Dammit. All I can remember is laughing at the joke, but the joke itself ...?
musicvid10 wrote on 6/14/2016, 12:05 PM
That's good advice that's been around since Windows 95 era.
The more elegant way is to boot in Safe Mode before going to Device Manager and deleting stuff.
There you may find more inactive entries than booting normally. Have your system rescue disc handy in case you get carried away.

PeterWright wrote on 6/16/2016, 3:02 AM
Thanks for this tip imaginACTION_films - I got caught with this problem today, having a client here, and to test a CD, she had to take it out to her car to play!

It played ok, then after she departed I used your advice and the drive reappeared.

Ok I'll ask - what was the rest of the joke?

Peter
rs170a wrote on 6/16/2016, 5:59 AM
Ok I'll ask - what was the rest of the joke?

Google to the rescue :)


Two guys in a helicopter are flying around the Seattle/Redmond area. It gets real foggy and the pilot gets lost. Some buildings are visible just a few yards ahead. He flies very close to an office window and hovers outside, facing it. He asks his passenger to pick up a big sign he has in the floor board and show it to them. It says, "Where am I?"

The people in the office building scramble, getting together paper and markers and write a big sign and hold it up against the window so the chopper pilot can read it. It says, "You're in a helicopter".

The pilot says to the passenger, "OK, I know where we are now."
Passenger: "What? How could you possibly know where you are by THAT?"
Pilot: We're at the Microsoft building.
Passenger: Huh?
Pilot: Their sign was accurate, but completely useless, so this has to be the Microsoft building.
imaginACTION_films wrote on 6/16/2016, 5:53 PM
Ha Ha! I laughed again. I knew it wouldn't take long for that joke to re-surface. Back in the day, around Windows 95 era, the sad part was that Microsoft's help was so hopeless. Indeed some of it still is. I wonder what it is with these nerds at Redmond? Maybe something in the water?

Glad this advice was useful. I can imagine the embarrassment when trying to show a client their DVD with no DVD icon available!!

On a more serious note, I've just recovered one of my computers from the unintended Windows 10 compulsory installation. The installation failed (because of a motherboard issue, I discovered) and so did the reversion to in 7. It cost me 5 days and $200 to get Win 7 reinstalled, then, the very next day, Win 10 tried to install itself again. TWICE in two hours. I contacted Microsoft help and a nice bloke in Rajasthan removed all traces of the automated Win10 updater. He had a special app to do this and commented that he spent a lot of his day doing just that. Imagine if a computer in a medical facility was hijacked in that way...

Cheers
David
Former user wrote on 6/16/2016, 6:14 PM
There is a free program called NEVER10 that will also delete the potential upgrade files.

I like Windows 10.