CD drive disappeared - what to do?

If your CD drive disappears and is no longer displayed, this is usually due to an error in the Windows registry. Here's how to fix it.

CD drive disappeared - so go ahead

Sometimes Windows "forgets" to display the optical drives in the system in the workplace overview:

1. Click on "Start" and enter the command "regedit" to open the registry editor of your system.
2. Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Class \ {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}".
3. Select the key so that you can see the corresponding entries in the right column.
4. Then delete the "UpperFilters ..." and "LowerFilters ..." entries in the right column.
5. Now confirm the system requests and restart it. Now the drives should be visible again.

Tip: CHIP has tested external DVD burners. You can read about how the drives performed in this article.