CD ROM not working?

[MjrTom]

I get an error msg stating there is a problem in the registry with the CD rom driver. I have tried deleting, reinstalling, rebooting, etc. Sony CD-RW that worked fine, then all of a sudden...

[cherrybomb00]

I know you probably dont want to hear this, but reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS would fix. Maybe just try reinstalling the OS overtop? That would fix the registry and any missing entries.

[MjrTom]

Well CB, I tried reinstalling the OS (WinXP) to no avail. I also tried to reformat, and got an error stating the the drive was unable to unmount (unlock) a partition (the drive is partitioned into 3 drives. I don't want to delete the partitions and lose the data inside, so I thought I would try to get the burner working first so I can back up critical data.
Thanks for your help....

[cherrybomb00]

Restart into Safe Mode (Restart the computer and press F8 before the Starting Windows screen). Go into the Device Manager and remove every instance of the CDRW that may be there. Sometimes you get multiple entries, but you can only find them in Safe Mode. Then restart back into windows and try reinstalling that CDRW driver (or Windows may decide to reinstall once it is no longer there, but detected as a PnP device).

[MjrTom]

thanks for the advice cherrybomb. I'm away from home on a business trip right now, but I'll give that a try when I get home Friday night. Thanks again...