Member Avatar for Rand777

I'm pretty stumped here. my Win 2k machine has been running for years with two CD-RW drives, no probs. One day, after booting up, I got an error saying that config/systemd was corrupt. OK, so I did what Microsoft recommends and fixed it. After that, I got "hardware not found" errors, and corrected all of them by reloading the drivers, with the exception of the CD drives. I see them in Device Manager with a Yellow circle/exclamation mark. I know that they use standard Win 2k drivers since they are Atapi drives using the standard windows cdrom drivers. No matter. I uninstalled them, rebooted, got a "hardware found" message, ran it through and still can't get decent drivers loaded. They are still showing in Device Manager but no drive letter has been assigned so I can't use them at all. I checked the BIOS and it picked them up correctly. Any ideas? Thanks!

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Good follow-up from and thanks to for the lead. Losing drive letters while BIOS still sees the devices almost always points to a software-level problem (driver, device-class registry entries, or leftover filter drivers from burning/virtual-drive software) rather than a physical failure. The steps below are practical, non-destructive checks and hardening actions to keep this from recurring.

  • Before changing anything, export the registry and make a full backup or disk image. If digging into device-class keys, export the CD-ROM class key under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} so you can restore it if needed.
  • Check Event Viewer (System) for driver or PnP errors at the time of boot — those entries give exact failure codes or service names.
  • In Device Manager uninstall the CD-ROM entries, then uninstall/reinstall the IDE/ATAPI channel controllers and reboot so Windows redetects devices. Use the option to show non-present devices and remove any stale/ghost CD/virtual-drive entries.
  • Verify the driver files exist (%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\cdrom.sys, atapi.sys) and, if system files were damaged, run sfc /scannow from the Windows 2000 CD to restore them.
  • If Windows detects a CD device but no letter is present, use Disk Management to assign or change the drive letter. If the device never appears, check for third-party filter drivers (burning/virtual-drive software) and remove them before retesting.

Preventive notes: avoid indiscriminate registry cleaners without a backup; keep chipset/IDE drivers from the motherboard vendor up to date; uninstall unused burning/virtual-drive tools; and keep a recent system image so a full restore is quick if system hives become corrupted again.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

Try this ,

Member Avatar for Rand777

Try this ,

THANKS A MILLION AMIGO. THAT DID THE JOB. I ALSO USED EASYCLEANER TO WIPE OUT BAD REGISTRY ENTRIES AND BOY DID I HAVE A LOT. THANKS AGAIN.

Member Avatar for caperjack

your welcome

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