cannot access cd-rom drive

You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: "error code 31"

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Article ID	:	314060
Last Review	:	April 16, 2007
Revision	:	2.2

This article was previously published under Q314060

SUMMARY

After you remove a program from your computer, you can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive successfully. The CD drive or the DVD drive does not appear. Or, you receive an error message when you try to access the drive. 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.

This article is intended for a beginning to intermediate computer user.

You may find it easier to follow the steps if you print this article first.

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Symptoms of the problem

In Microsoft Windows XP, after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program, or after you remove a different program, you experience the following symptoms:

	You cannot access the CD drive or the DVD drive by using My Computer.
	One of the following error messages appears when you view the CD drive or the DVD drive in Device Manager: Error message 1 The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31). Error message 2 A driver for this device was not required, and has been disabled (Code 32 or Code 31). Error message 3 Your registry might be corrupted. (Code 19)
	You receive an "error code 39" error message.
	A message that resembles the following appears in the notification area: Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

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Methods to resolve the problem

Method 1: Guided Help 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.

Guided Help is available to delete the registry entries that can cause CD access problems. Guided Help can automatically perform the steps for you.

The actions that this Guided Help performs can be undone after Guided Help is finished. To undo this Guided Help, run Guided Help again. On the Welcome page, click Undo this Guided Help, and then follow the instructions.

For more information about Guided Help, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

915092 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915092/) Description of Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base articles

Requirements to install and to use this Guided Help

You must be logged on to Windows by using a computer administrator account to install and to use this Guided Help.
You must be running Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to install and to use this Guided Help.

You must first download Guided Help. To start, click the following link.

Download Guided Help

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/)

Method 2: Manually delete the registry entries

Remove upper and lower filters

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