CD/DVD player not recognized

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@danndenni wrote:

More than 3 times now my CD/DVD player becomes unrecognized (doesn't show on my computer) after upgrading iTunes.

 

Dell has sent me a new CD/DVD drive (old one was not broke) to solve the problem but it seems that if I restore to prior date before the iTunes upgrade, the problem goes away and I can use my CD/DVD drive.

 

Any potential solutions or similar problems?

 

DenniDann

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I've run into a similar issue on my system. I have two drives in my system and one drive (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) no longer functions after I install iTunes 7.7 (the newest version). The second drive (DVD-RW) continues to function normally. However, both drives do show up in Windows Explorer. I even tried to download a couple of older versions of iTunes, namely 7.4.3 (crashed) and 7.6 (Apple website redirected to 7.7), and had no success. I also tried a tip mentioned on the forums of removing the upper and lower filters for the drives from the registry. When I did this the drive started working again but failed once I restarted iTunes.

 

I have seen some other people having the same issue so what I am trying to do now is find out if our systems have something in common that could be causing this problem.

 

These are the things that I am looking for right now, along with my specs, but any other suggestions would be appreciated:

Operating system - Windows Vista

iTunes version - 7.7

iTunes upgrade (Y/N) - N

# of optical disk drives (cd/dvd) - 2

Type of drive that is not working - CD-RW/DVD-ROM

Desktop/Laptop - Desktop

 

If you could post this info or pm me, that would be great. Perhaps we'll be able to find out what is going on with iTunes and/or these drives.

After some further troubleshooting I wanted to post an update on what I've found. The main thing that I've discovered is that iTunes is not the problem in my case as I believed before. I ran a factory image restore and my cd-rw/dvd-rom is still unable to read discs while my second optical drive still has no problems. So in this case I can only surmise that my first drive has failed with no help from any other programs.

try this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461

I'm glad I checked this forum...  Dell support didn't let on that this was a problem for other customers...

 

I have had the same problem several times now.  iTunes and Dell don't play well together...  Their drivers / filters / whatever are not compatible with Dell's hardware choice for the DVD unit in my wife's laptop.

 

The most recent time with Dell Chat/support ended with "we don't do software" after the support rep reinstalled the DVD drivers a second time...  I was given the option of paying for software support (even though this is clearly a hardware/driver issue) or I was told I could try calling Apple...

 

Don't get me wrong - I get it.  I have a lot of time in High-tech, most recently with a few start-ups before "retiring" to work in a different field as a scientist.  Still, its kinda hard to figure how Dell (a large, popular PC vendor) and/or Apple (the company behind the most popular MP3 player in the world) haven't figured out how to get heir stuff to work together...  Or that support can't say "hey, we have an issue and we can't figure it out..."  Sometimes, honesty goes a long way.

 

Not sure where to go from here, save "chatting" with Dell each time my wife needs to use the DVD unit after using iTunes...

 

Anyone contact Apple to see what they have to say?

 

Thanks!

Steve

First, I want to thank Prixon for posting that link to the MS knowledgebase article. Unfortunately it didn't help in my case but it may help others with similar issues.

 

Second, welcome to the forum, SCDaukas. I think the answers to your question as to why tech support doesn't say "we have an issue and can't figure it out" are (1) they may not realize that there is an issue and (2) ownership of the issue. In regards to point 1, there may not be enough wheel squeaking yet for any of the vendors to realize that there is something wrong. If the majority of people are using a similar setup with no problems then the thinking is that there is no issue. For point 2 it will take one of the vendors to admit that there is an issue and then admit that it is their product that is causing this issue, thereby taking ownership of the issue and the resultant troubleshooting. In this case there is a possibility of three vendors that could take ownership of this issue, imho: 1) MS - due to Vista, 2) Apple - due to iTunes, 3) the optical drive vendor. Now it comes down to what is actually causing this issue.

 

Third, I've found in my experience that the forums can sometimes be the best place to find info because you interact with people experiencing the same issues that you are and have no limitations instead of relying on someone that is restricted to what they can troubleshoot. There are limitations for tech support but I'll leave that soapbox in the corner. The downside of using the forums being that forum users in general do not have access to a lot of the step-by-step troubleshooting guides that tech support does.

 

Fourth, another update to what I've tried in my troubleshooting adventure. This section relates to the information that was provided in the link that Prixon supplied so take a look at that link before continuing. I noticed after I did my factory image restore that I only had one filter listed in the registry for the cd/dvd drives: a lowerfilter of PxHelp 20. After installing iTunes I had an upperfilter of Geara spi WDM in addition to the lowerfilter. As I mentioned, removing these filters as suggested in the link has not resolved my issue but I have seen some posts where it has been the solution. I have seen another suggestion in a different forum that I am going to try and will post again when I see what happens.

First, my drive had failed so I've replaced it and all is well again.

 

Second (and more important), there appears to be a fix for the drives disappearing after installing iTunes that doesn't involve changing the registry. For those experiencing this, check to see if you have the driver file asf.sys on your hard drive. If so, rename it to something like asf1.sys. You may need to restart the computer. See if the drives now show up (you can check before you restart). Do not remove the lowerfilter or upperfilter from the dvd/cd-rom drives key of the registry because it shouldn't be necessary. If you try this and it works, please post this fact. If it doesn't work, please post that as well because there may be other drivers that are conflicting.