How to fix the problem of "DVD Drive Not Found" in Windows 7 ?

In some cases the DVD drive may not be seen in windows 7 even if you can find it in the BIOS settings or by using the standard driver. There can be many reasons for this problem.

Causes/Reasons of DVD failures:

Hardware Problem:

Another potential cause of this issue is because of hardware problems. If the drive has suddenly stopped working then this is likely to be the cause. A DVD drive is quite a sophisticated piece of technology and there are many things which can go wrong with it.

It’s unlikely that you will be able to fix a broken DVD drive. These simply aren’t worth fixing because they are so cheap to buy at the moment. Simply buy a replacement drive and put it in your computer.

Driver Problems:

If you have just upgraded to Windows 7 from a previous operating system and the DVD drive has never worked properly then it is probably due to driver problems. A driver is a special piece of software which tells your computer how to control the hardware.

As almost every computer has a DVD drive as standard these drivers are normally included with a basic windows installation. If you suspect that this is the problem then you will need to download new drivers from the internet. It might also be possible to use the driver disk which were included with your drive.

Here is a simple fixes/solutions to it.

Method 1

Type regedit in the windows 7 start menu. The windows 7 registryeditor will open up.

Now go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass. Now in the right hand pane, delete both UpperFilters and LowerFilters (UpperFilters.bak and LowerFilters.bak entries can be ignored).

Method 2

If above method doesn't fix the problem, then next thing we can do is to change the drive letter of the DVD drive. For this Type Disk Management in the windows 7 start menu and press enter. You will see the Disk Management windows opening up. Now right click on your DVD drive in the bottom panel and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Change the drive letter of the DVD drive to some other (If it was G change it to H or some other). Now Restart Your system. And Your DVD drive should be there. You may now change the DVD drive letter back to the previous one.