[font=Tahoma][size=2][color=green] Hello there

I've been having a few problems with my DVD drive and my CD-RW drive. After buying a new game for my PC, Command & Conquer The First Decade, I installed all of the components from it. However, 2 of the games which were supplied with the disc kept bringing up the error message: "Cannot locate the DVD-ROM".
This baffled me, as the disc was already inserted and the other games on the disc did not require the disc to play them. After this message came up, my DVD drive then disappeared from my PC, and would not reappear unless i restarted the PC completely.
My friend then supplied me with a floppy disk which had a registry entry on it that was supposed 2 fix the problem. When i used this disk, it altered the registry, and now it will not pick up either my DVD drive OR my CD-RW drive.
I attempted a system restore to try and reverse the process, but this did not fix the problem. I am now stuck as to what to do about this? IS there any method of reversing it?? any help greatly appreciated!!

Bios has got nothing to do with it...

Registry goof ups don't alter hardware bios settings.

System restore will not "restore" all your computer settings. System restore is not to be used as a backup tool for your PC. In extremely many cases it does more harm then good.

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Here is some chat between me and mwe99 about this, prior to creating this thread. It contains some (possible) things to do/try. It isn't that accurate or well explained though, hence not something I like to post to a forum, but anyways...

quote:

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Via MSN Messenger chat

mwe99 says:
hey you busy? 
me says:
not really but I'm just home and wanted to watch some TV for what time is left before going to bed
mwe99 says:
lol
nooo
stay for 2 secs 
my friend needs some help
me says:
shoot
mwe99 says:
He installed something and it ruined his drives I think
me says:
? drives aren't that easly "ruined"...
mwe99 says:
Totally lOst thread..
me says:
unless he program involved things like formatting and "fixing" low-level stuff of course
mwe99 says:
see the thread?
me says:
not much time to research it... but tell him to start by removing his DVD/CD ROM players from the PC, then restart (so windows really doesn't reconize them anymore as they are not installed), remove any left-overs from unused drivers (thus, those from the dvd/cdrom drives) the proper way, turn pc off, reinstall dvd/cdrom drives, reboot, reinstall drivers

And also don't let him forget to reinstall anything else (from drivers to settings the correct things back) since the time the system restore he used was saved...

me says:
also let him check the hardware tab in his system config panel
me says:
if windows reconizes his drives again and they perform in the proper way with other stuff, let him surf to the official C&C's website and let him check for updates and/or fixes or whatever...

Tell him not to mess with registry just like that if he doesn't have the knowledge only because "a friend said so"... (and certainly not without first taking a backup of the registry)
mwe99 says:
Thanks
me says:
among the common bugs (which will have official fixes) the message "Cannot locate the DVD-ROM" might also simply indicate a bad/corrupted/scratch/whatever DVD disc...
mwe99 says:
Post   cos I’m not on my pc lol
me says:
it even can be that the other games he is talking about, need a special kind of installation or another installation (eg: on hard disk) than the main games... let him (re)read every piece of documentation that comes with the discs and/or games

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I have 1 problem with that....i didnt get any discs with the PC when I got it so that i can re-install the CD-RW drive and the DVD driv, and i didnt get any back-up discs either. So....what will happen if i uninstall them?

PS. My 'friend' does loads of stuff with registries, its the main part of his course at college.

this is the problem with the driver:

Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

Is there any way of sorting this?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q270008/