Windows 10: Windows 10 and Optical Drive in File Explorer

Hello,


I have searched the internet far and wide for a solution to no avail.


I am using Windows 10 Home v1903, OS Build 18362.356.


I am having difficulty getting File Explorer to show the Optical Drive all the time. If a CD/DVD is NOT in the drive, it does not show the drive as available. When I insert a CD/DVD into the drive, File Explorer will sometimes (33%? of the time), but not always show the drive as available. The drive spins up and all, just doesn't show. If I open a Command Prompt and change to the drive letter, I can access the drive and use it normally. Sometimes, this will force File Explorer to show the drive suddenly, but usually not.


While searching the internet, I found a Microsoft document stating that Windows 8 starting managing power to optical drives with a ZeroPowerODD function. This management would shut off the power to the optical drive and essentially cause the behavior I'm experiencing. I could not find any registry entries related to this in Windows 10, allowing the ability to disable it.. Nor could I find any equivalent ability for Windows 10.


Does Windows 10 still use this same management functionality for the Optical drives?

How do I force File Explorer to show the drive 100% of the time (empty or not)?


P.S. I have File Explorer settings to SHOW hidden files and folders, and drives. And SHOW empty drives. (not that it seems to help!)

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Optical Drive Disappears from File Explorer


After much procrastination on upgrading a perfectly good Windows 7 operating system, I took the leap and successfully upgrading to Windows 10 over Two months ago. After completing the upgrade, I though wow what a great product. All of the installed drives, devices etc. were listed and worked just as before. About 2 weeks ago, I noticed that my Blu-ray drive was no longer listed in File Explorer. I checked Device Manager and it was listed and showed to be working properly. I found similar but not identical issues several forms related to a device disappearing so I tried some of the suggestions all of which did not cause the optical drive to appear as before. Since the drive is less than 3 months old, I contacted manufacturer support and was told that this is a know problem when upgrading to Windows 10 vs. a new install and was advised to contact Microsoft support. The manufacture technician provided some suggestions and was advised that I should not attempt on my own and let Microsoft Support make the suggested changes.

OK, time to weed through the Microsoft maze to find a method to report what I consider a bug, considering that I did not have any issue with Windows 7. First chat session, a Microsoft support person connected to my computer remotely and performed the same procedures that I had already done so I put up with 1-1/2 of them digging though my computer in the hopes that issue could be identified. The command reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice1 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0000001 was executed as recommended by drive manufacturer and rebooted. The drive showed up in File Explorer and assumed this was the fix. This lasted approximately one week and then the optical drive again disappeared from File Explorer but shows in Device Manager and working properly.

Contacted Microsoft support chat again, when though the complete story and after 2 hours of remote connection to my computer the following Registry entries were added (as recommended by Drive Manufacturer) followed by a re-start:
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice1 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice2 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice3 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001
reg.exe add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0" /f /v EnumDevice4 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001

End result, no change, the optical drive was not listed in File Explorer. The last comment from technical support before re-st was if this does not work the optical drive is not compatible with Windows 10*Eek Interesting how a device works properly for 6 weeks and now is not compatible with Windows 10.

I performed some not technical troubleshooting like manually ejecting the drive tray and inserting a disk. After the disk read completes, now the drive is listed under File Explorer and played without any problem. After ejecting the disk, the drive disappears again from File Explorer.

In summary, my opinion is that Microsoft released Windows 10 before thoroughly testing the operating system and relies on customer complaints to fix what should have been identified during the Beta testing. This evident by the "complimentary" support as it termed in the message sent at the end of the chat session. Perhaps someone from Microsoft with more than basic troubleshooting knowledge will read this post and consider addressing this problem.

 

Optical drive letters keep swapping

Open Disk Management (click Start, type diskmgmt.msc in the Search box, and press Enter).

1. In the lower pane, right-click on your optical drive and select "Change drive letter and paths"
2. Assign Y: to the first optical drive
3. Repeat step 1 for the second optical drive and assign Z: