Q. I uninstalled a program that requested a reboot. Now my CD and DVD devices have disappeared. How can I fix this?

A. I recently had this problem after I finally gave up trying to use the Apple iPhone in an enterprise capacity because of problems with the calendar and some other features. I switched to another phone and decided to uninstall iTunes. The uninstall program asked me to reboot, and after the reboot the system could not see my DVD, Blu-ray, and virtual DVD drives. I figured this was Apple’s final revenge for my betrayal.

I started Device Manager by typing devmgmt.msc into the run box. The DVD/CD-ROM drives node showed all my devices in a warning state. In the detailed view they each had the status Code 39, as shown here, indicating that the devices’ drivers couldn’t be loaded.



After some quick research and testing, I found the following solution:

1. Start the registry editor by typing regedit.exe into the run box.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318\}.
3. Right click the UpperFilters value in the right hand pane and select Delete. Click Yes in the confirmation message.
4. Right click the LowerFilters value in the right hand pane and select Delete. Click Yes in the confirmation message.
5. Close the registry editor.
6. In Device Manager, right click each of the drives that aren’t functioning, select Uninstall, and click OK to the displayed dialog.
7. Once all the drives are removed, right click the root (the computer’s name) in Device Manager and select Scan for hardware changes. The computer should now find your drives and load their drivers without problems