[Wftl-lug] Wierd DVD Drive problem with Dual Boot

[Michael Rudas]

On 8/4/07, Joe Gulizia wrote:

> I'm now using Kubuntu 7.04 at work along with
> Windows XP.
> My DVD-ROM Drive and DVD(plus minus)RW/CD-RW are
> recognized and work fine under Linux but NOT XP.

Sorry for the late reply-- but the machine IS at work, right? :-)

It's unlikely in the EXTREME that Linux had anything to do with your
problem, though it IS an outside possibility.  Is the PC a Dell?  In a
few cases, Linux can overwrite a flash-memory area and cause wierd
errors, though this is rare.

MUCH more common is Windows Registry or BIOS problems.  Before you go
reinstalling WinXP (bleah), there's a few things you can try,
depending upon how hardware-savvy you are:

* Watch as your PC boots up.  Early in the boot process, it will
recognize the attached drives and enumerate them.  If it "sees" the
hard drive(s) but not the optical drives, that's a clue-- but then
Linux probably would not see them, either.

* The Registry is the most-likely suspect in this case.  There are
several things that can cause optical drives to "disappear"-- the most
common is the use of burner software that was written for Win9x, which
can do wierd things to the WinNT Registry, requiring RegEdit to
repair.  I ran into this problem with Click 'n' Burn, for example.  A
first-line recovery would be to go into the "Device Manager".  The
easiest way to do this is:
use the [Win logo]+[Pause/Break] key combo to bring up the "System
Properties" window, then select the "Hardware" tab, then click the
"Device Manager" button.  Go to the DVD/CD-ROM area and display the
drives.  If they are showing, right-click on each one and select
"uninstall"-- then reboot and it should find them again.  If the
drives are not showing-- or if a reboot does not clear the problem--
you will have to edit the Registry.  Google "cd drive not recognized"
WITHOUT the quotes for more info.

If you can, report from work with more details, including your Windows
burning software and your discoveries to that point.

-- Mikey