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Help! Why are my CD-ROM drives not showing in My Computer? Why are there yellow exclamation marks by the CD-ROM drives in Device Manager?

One of the reasons why this can happen is because the drivers that allow the CD-ROM drives to work in Windows XP have become corrupted.

The first thing to try is this Registry File. Remove the devices in Device Manager and reboot. The CD-ROM drives should work now.

If not, try these steps. Warning! These steps are not for the faint at heart.

Open the Device Manager and right-click on the CD-ROM drive that has a yellow exclamation mark by it.


Go to the Driver tab and click on the Driver Details button.


You should now have this window...


Look at each of the driver files that are being used for the CD-ROM drive, specifically the ones that aren't made by Microsoft. For instance, in the screen shot above is just one example of a device driver that isn't made by Microsoft. Copy all of the file names of the drivers that aren't made by Microsoft, you will need them for the next step.

Open up RegEdit and find all instances of those file names that you copied down in the last step. Delete any and all references that contain those file names.

Next, go into the Device Manager and delete the CD-ROM devices. Now, go to Add New Hardware and let it search for new devices. It should reload the CD-ROM devices minus the third-party device drivers, only the Microsoft supplied ones.

You should be good to go now! :-)


Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
  • Hi... My dvd drive not show some time, when i start up and restrt then i can see, but after some time, i can't

    2014-06-19 01:37:26

  • Awesone Man... Done... Perfectly Done...

    2014-05-04 10:26:58

  • The registry file exe worked perfect, thanks.

    2014-02-17 19:44:56

  • Had previously deleted the CD-ROM device and reinstalled; the only driver shown was "cdrom.sys" by Microsoft, so this solution did not work.

    2014-01-06 14:29:12

  • now its working.....many thanks.....

    2013-09-22 13:21:22

  • were do you look for the drivers that aren't made by microsoft in regedit?

    2013-03-25 02:18:38

  • These instructions should work fine with Windows Vista as well as Windows 7.

    2011-09-22 22:18:23 (trparky See Profile)

  • Can anyone provide an update of these instructions for Windows 7?

    2011-09-22 15:53:28



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by trparky See Profile
last modified: 2007-01-09 00:06:46