CD/DVD Drive Disappearing on Windows XP and Vista

I've worked as a computer repair technician for many years now and I've noticed a recurring problem with the CD/DVD drive icon disappearing from the My Computer menu. Now this truly can be an aggravating problem if you don't know how to fix it and usually sends you running to the nearest PC Repair shop for help. As a matter of fact it really isn't that complicated of a fix. Here's how...

1. In XP go to Start, then click on Run and type in 'regedit' or if you're using Vista just type 'regedit' in the search box (minus the quotation marks).
2. From there maximize the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES
3. Maximize System
4. Maximize CurrentControlSet
5. Maximize Control
6. Maximize Class
7. Now look for, and be precise, {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Once you've gotten this far, look in the right panel and find 'Upperfilter' and 'Lowerfilter' highlight each 'filter' and hit the delete key, You will be prompted after each filter to confirm, just click yes and then restart the computer after you have deleted both filters.

If after doing this the drive is still not working or showing up in the My Computer menu then most likely you've got a bad CD/DVD drive or even a bad motherboard. At this point I would highly recommend visiting your nearest PC repair shop. Hopefully though this works for you and saves you the trip and the money of getting your computer fix.