Where did my CD drive go?

I have installed TI 8.0 b826 and it seems to work. I create images, examine images, but have not restored more than a file or two.

Now, both of my CD Rom drives are missing from Windows.

I have a P4, 3GHZ, Win XP, SATA C: drive and two CD drives on the secondary IDE port.

After TI was installed I cannopt use the CD drives.

The system cmos settings see the cd drives.
I can actually boot a TI cd rom boot CD disk.
Windows XP devicew manager sees the cd drives but with a yellow "!" saying that XP can't use the drivers for them.

Deleting and reinstalling the drives does not help.

TI seems to be hogging the drive letters? Or what?

I turned the XP Acronis hardware device off and that was a big mistake. I recovered and am back to the original problem, no cd drives.

Do I have to uninstall TI and send it back?

Help please.
chopah

 

Hello chopah,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please uninstall Acronis True Image, download the latest (859) build from http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/updates/ (you need to register your serial number first at http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/products/registration/ to get access to updates) and install it. After that please let us know two things:
1. Did your CD drive reappear when you uninstalled Acronis True Image?
2. Did your CD drive disappeared again after you installed the latest build?

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

If the above advice does not fix the problem, save the following code as fixcds.vbs and run it:

Code:

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim WshShell, Message
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\UpperFilters"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\LowerFilters"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf\"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr\"
Set WshShell = Nothing
Message = "Your CD/DVD-Rom drives should now appear in Windows Explorer." & vbCR
Message = Message & "You may need to reboot your computer to see the change."
MsgBox Message, 4096,"Finished!"

This post comes with no warranty either implied or explicit.

 

OKAY:
I downloaded ATI v859.

I un-installed the ATI I had in place, still no CD drives.

I had XP delete the CD drives from Device Mgr and restarted XP.

XP found the CD drives as "new hdwe".

XP still cannot put the cd drives in "my computer or windpws explorer" no changes.

I'm not re-installing ATI 859 until cd drives return.

I look closely at the vbs script from "beenthereb4"

I examine my xp registery for these entries.

It appears I have these, but not the final part of any of them, such as ""Upperfilters", "LowerFilters", Cdr4_2k, etc.

I run the script anyway, what the heck. Norton AV isn't pleased.

I re-power the pc and the cd drives exist again, nice. I guess I need to look closer at the script.

I reboot a few times and cd drives remain.

I now load ATI v859, loads normally.

I now power my external firewire drive that the earlier ATI image is on.

I try to load the image to look at it.

Crash. It fails at the point of "assigning disk letter" It won't stop, I can't stop it, I can't do much. I do get into forcing xp to end the ATI process, that works however I'm hopelessly stuck. Only a hard reset gets the pc running again.

Thanks God, the pc boots up nicely.

My cd drives still exist.

I start the firewire drive again and format it.

Now I start ATI again and do a full image of C: to it, no problems, "image successful".

Now explore the image again. This time it opens it, as "G".

I can look at these files and some are audio mp3 files. I can play some of these and some I can't, they are full of pops and missing audio. No problem I guess, the open image probasbly isn't all that fast.

I close "G", the image. I close ATI. I still have my cd drives.

I "eject" the external firewire drive and then power it of.

I still have cd drives, nice.

I power off a few times because I can and the cd drives remain.

The only bug that I can find remaining is involved with recording on my cd/dvd rw drive. It and the cdr drive both play back fine.

If I open win explorer, grab a file, and dump it on my cd/dvd rw, it used to let me record it there. Now it doesn't know what to do. Before this problem an icon would tell me I had files ready to record. Now this doesn't happen.

Nero cdr software worked fine for recording a file to the cdrw.

I'm going to wait a few days to call this really fixed.

I do think my XP registry was screwed by ATI and the above vbs script only fixed some of it. I have an external firewire drive hard that installs and works. I have another external hard drive that can be firewire or usb2, it installs but XP won't issue a drive letter to it.

Is there a way to "reset" drive letters without destroying my XP or my C drive?

Thank you Acronis Support and "beenthereb4" for your help.

If you have time, please explain what the script did to fix things.

Chopah (a chopah is an undesirable fish by the way)

 

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=324129

 

Hello Chopah,

Could you please let us know what problem you experience now? If I am not mistaken Acronis True Image works fine now and you are able to use CD drive. Is the problem with some particular application?

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Hi Ilya:

At this time, I have my cd drives behaving fairly well but there are still problems. My CD/DVD read/write drive will read disks normally. There is no way it will record when using XP Explorer however Nero does record with the drive. The ID given to cd drives (in XP Explorer) sometimes changes from CD/DVD recorder to CD rom drive.

Using a hint from an earlier post, I did manage to return the "Record" tab to the properties of the drive. XP lets me drag a file to the drive however when I tell XP to record the CD, it says that no disk in in the drive. Of course it is in there and when asked to play back a file, it sees the disks just fine.

As far as Acronis TI goes, it is totally un-installed and I'm afraid to load it again. I have a machine that works about 95%, Acronis is removed, and maybe that is as good as it gets.

At this point I'd be happy to get XP back to normal as far as drive letters and read/write are concerned.

While TI was working, I did a full hard drive clone to another hard drive. This did work well, both drives are bootable but both are infected with the cd/cdr issues that Acronis caused.

I'd also be happy to do all my backups with "Clone only" methods. Is there an Acronis software that does clones only and doesn't mess with XP drive letters and values. I'd trade today.

At this point in time I wish that I had not ever loaded TI.

Chopah

 

Hello Chopah,

If the problem with CD drive still remains after Acronis True Image uninstallation it is unlikely that the reason is Acronis True Image. You may find useful the following article about how to solve problems with CD-R, CD-RW drives:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316529/

As for another cloning software, Acronis offers Acronis Migrate Easy 7.0. You may get acquainted with this product at our site.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Ilya:
Thanks for the recent response.

You may be correct in thinking that TI didn't cause my cdr/cdrw problem.
On the other hand I think it is related because the cd problem occured immediately after I installed ATI. Maybe I'll never know for sure.

Question: Am I the only user of TI that thinks TI caused CD drive issues that include lost drive letters and loss of ability to record using XP recording wizard?

If so then my problem may be from a source other than ATI.

If the answer to the question is "no, others also have this problem", I would ask a second question.

Am I safer using ATI to ONLY do CLONES of hard drives and never to mess around with images? TI did a killer clone for me in record time, and it booted just fine.

I'm convinced the cd drive problem happened when I opened a TI image for looking at it. TI made it have a spare drive letter and I was able to look at files. This is exactly when my pc suddenly started acting sloooow and finally needed the reset switch hit to force a reboot.

Final thoughts. ATI: It still has potential for me but it is like petting a strange dog in the park, I may get bit again.

Chopah

 

Hello Chopah,

As for the first question, we haven't heard about CD drive letters loss after installation of Acronis software before. Along with the fact that uninstallation didn't solve the problem that made me think the problem not to be resulted from Acronis True Image. However, you are right that there may appear a relationship because Acronis True Image creates new "virtual" device in Device Manager ("Start" -> "Control Panel" -> "System" -> "Hardware" tab -> "Device Manager") called "Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer". This device is needed to explore images.

The problem you encounter needs to be investigated further. Have you tried to install Acronis True Image again? If so were you able to use CD drives after that?

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I haven't tried a 3rd install of ATI but will try again. I'm busy with some important jobs for a while so I'll not reload it now, my pc is working.

I'm very aware of the virtual device, "Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer", that you mention. Early in my trouble-shooting I decided to de-activate this device to see if that would fix my cd drive problems.

This was a huge mistake. Without the virtual device my computer wouldn't boot to XP at all, not even to safe-mode. If it weren't for XP's option to return to the "last working" state, I'd be reloading everything now and saying bad words. This is the first time I've had praise for any Windows feature.

I'd suggest a large warning in Acronis literature about doing what I did. Live and learn.

Thanks for your prompt replies.

Chopah

 

Hello Chopah,

I do understand what you mean. You may try to reinstall Acronis True Image when you find it convinient and we will certainly examine any issues you may encounter (hope, there will be none of them though).

Your remark concerning deleting Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer is really helpful and we will add the warning about it into our User's Guide.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman