In a large organization, this can actually be quite common. Many a floor support tech has been dispatched to try to correct by physically checking or replacing the drive. The symptom is that the CD\DVD drive letter is missing in Windows. In the vast majority of cases, this is a software issue and can be resolved remotely, without the need for someone to open the system. The cause is the result of class filters becoming corrupted or modified in some way, usually because of a badly written or incompatible driver, firmware update, or after installing CD\DVD burning software.
To correct the issue, navigate to this location in the Windows registry: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. Delete the upperfilter and lowerfilters strings and reboot. Read the rest of this entry »
Windows Explored 