CD/DVD drives in Windows 7 and code 39 error

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A collegue’s desktop computer has twice lost touch with its DVD drive. The drive is OK, it’s recognized by the BIOS, it even booted from a FreeBSD DVD when told to do so. Yet Windows 7 refused to display the drive. The Device Manager utility complained about a missing driver service and something about a code 39 error. A surfing expedition revealed this article which gives some pretty accurate suggestions.

The solution is to run regedit and navigate using these directions:

  1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  2. SYSTEM
  3. CurrentControlSet
  4. Control
  5. Class
  6. {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Delete any values with names like one of these:

  • UpperFilters
  • UpperFilters.bak
  • LowerFilters
  • LowerFilters.bak

Finally reboot and hope for the best.

I suspect Nero being the culprit in this case, but I need to check with my collegue to be certain.