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Article ID : S700023614 / Last Modified : 07/12/2018Print

The Optical Disc Drive is not accessible anymore in Windows XP or Windows Vista

    This solution provides you with step-by-step instructions to:
    • make your CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive availlable again
    difficulty rating Difficulty rating:
    Average    		 time needed Time needed:
    10 minutes activity

    Problem description:

    • After you remove a program from your computer, or you update the firmware of your optical disc drive, you can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive successfully, or the drive does not appear in "My Computer" anymore.  
    • You receive an error message when you try to access the drive.  
    • In Device Manager, the optical drive properties shows a random error code.

    This article contains two methods to resolve this problem. One of the methods requires that you manually modify the Windows registry to remove the UpperFilters registry entry and the LowerFilters registry entry. You must restart the computer after you follow the steps in this article.

    Solution 1: use Microsoft Fix it to delete the registry entries


    Note: We recommend that you uninstall all CD recording or CD writing programs before you delete the registry entries. You can reinstall any programs that you use after you resolve this problem.
    Microsoft Fix it is available to delete the registry entries that can cause CD access problems. Microsoft Fix it can automatically perform the steps for you.

    The actions that this Microsoft Fix it performs can be undone after Microsoft Fix it is finished. If you would like to undo it, run Microsoft Fix it again.

    You can read more about this issue, and download Microsoft Fix it here

    Method 2: Manually delete the registry entries

    Important: This method contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully.
    For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it, so that you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, you can consult the relevant article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base



    Log on to Windows by using an account that has administrator rights and permissions. Then, follow these steps.

    Step 1: Start Registry Editor

    Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Registry Editor starts.  (In Vista, right-click Registry Editor, and select Run as Administrator)

    Step 2: Delete the UpperFilters registry entry

    1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
    2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
    3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
    4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
    5. In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters.
      Note An UpperFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the UpperFilters registry entry, you must click UpperFilters and not UpperFilters.bak.
    6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
    7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the UpperFilters registry entry:
      Are you sure you want to delete this value?
      The UpperFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.
    Note Do not exit Registry Editor. You must have this program for the next step.

    Step 3: Delete the LowerFilters registry entry

    1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
    2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
    3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
    4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
    5. In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters.
      Note An LowerFilters.bak registry entry may also appear.
      To delete the LowerFilters registry entry, you must click LowerFilters and not LowerFilters.bak.
    6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
    7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the LowerFilters registry entry:
      Are you sure you want to delete this value?
      The LowerFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.
    8. Exit Registry Editor.

    Step 4: Restart the computer

    Important: If a CD recording program no longer works after you restart the computer, you must reinstall the CD recording program.


    Additional note about Optical Disc Drive drivers

    An optical disc drive always uses Windows drivers.  For this reason, you will never find a driver update for your DVD or Blu-ray drive in our downloads section.
    If, for some reason, you want to reinstall the drivers of your drive, you can just uninstall it from Device Manager, and have Windows check for new hardware.