The day before yesterday, i talked to a cousin that was having problems with his dvd drive. Windows didn’t show it in explorer and in device manager there was this error: Device Cannot Start (Code 10).
Then, i remembered having to face this problem more than once before. I offered my help as usual and the problem was solved. I thought of posting about it just in case someone needs a quick fix for it.
This problem can have many possible causes. The most common ones are that programs for burning or ripping, like Nero, AnyDVD and others sometimes left drivers installed when they are removed.
The first solution is to re-install the program. About a year ago, AnyDVD caused this, so re-installing it would solve the problem, same with some old versions of Nero. Try this to see if a program you installed/uninstalled was the cause.
The other solution involves deleting two registry entries and restarting your computer. It works for XP, Vista and Windows 7.
- Open the Windows Registry Editor. Type regedit in the Run box of the Start Menu.
- Navigate to this path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
- Go to File and choose Export. Then select Selected Branch and save this in case you run into a problem. You will be able to restore these values if something goes wrong.
- Right click these two entries and delete them. UpperFilters and LowerFilters. If you only have one of them there, don’t worry, delete it.
- Restart you computer. You should be able to see and use your CD-DVD drive again.
In case deleting the key causes you more trouble or conflicts, double click the file you saved and restart Windows. The entries will be restored as they were before deleting them.
It seems that more often than not, we encounter ourselves with internet connection problems, computers that can’t see each other on the local network and problems that appear suddenly after everything was working well.
There is an easy way to try something before checking something else or calling for help.
This is called Power Cycling and can help you with your internet connection, booting problems and local network issues. It consists of turning off/on your equipment exactly in order. Follow this steps to do a complete Power Cycle:
- Turn your computer(s) off. It is important to unplug the power cords. If you have a laptop, unplug it and remove the battery for a few seconds.
- Turn off your router(s) and/or internet modem. Unplug the power cords, it is important.
- After you have all your equipment turned off, wait from 30 to 60 seconds for any residual power to drain from your devices.
- Now you have to turn on, in order, all your devices. Turn the internet modem on and wait for all its status lights to show that a connection has been established successfully. Turn the router on and wait about 30 seconds for it to initialize properly. Then turn on your computer(s).
Now you should be able to connect to the internet or see other computers on the network. Do this everytime you experience slow speeds, intermittent signal on the wireless network and local network computers can’t see each other after they were fine.
If this does not solve your problem, you will have to contact tech support or call someone to help you out.
