Windows 10: DVD drive is missing after upgrade

[German]Some users are missing their optical drives (DVD, CD) after upgrading from Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10, or after a feature update. Here are some details how to fix it.


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Check device manager

Fire up your device manager (press Windows+X and select the device manager entry) and check, if the DVD drive is available.

Double click the device entry and check on General property page, if driver errors are reported. If error code 19 is reported, use the following steps to delete the upper/lower filters

  1. Launch Regedit.exe with admin rights
  2. Navigate to registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\Class\ {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
  3. Delete sub keys LowerFilters and UpperFilters, if present

Restart and check, if the optical drives are back.

TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222AB ATA drive

If that drive hasn't been recognized (see this MS Answers post), try:


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1. Launch device manager, search the optical drive entry and double click this item.

2. Uninstall the driver for this device and reboot Windows

In some cases, the drive will be recognized and installed.

SATA controller isn't supported

Modern boards are using SATA controllers to connect an optical drive. A SATA drive will be connected, using the small cable show below.

In some cases I've seen SATA driver errors after upgrade to Windows 10. So check in device manager, if SATA controller provides a driver error.

On some systems the DVD drive will be reported as working in device manager, but is not available in Windows explorer. My suggestion: Check for updated chip set drivers and BIOS update. I've seen a case, where the 1st disk drive need to be set as boot drive in BIOS to detect optical drives.

Tip#1: Many boards are using several distinct SATA controllers on a mainboard. So it may help to connect the SATA cable for the optical DVD drive with another SATA port.

Tip#2: Also updating chip set drivers may cure this issue. Some users reporting a missing AHCI driver as a root cause.

„Most of the time, if a drive is not detected properly, depending on your chipset, it helps to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager / Intel Rapid Storage or the RAID drivers for AMD chipsets.

ATAPI drive isn't detected

Older computers are using PATA ports to connect to ATAPI-DVD drives. Here is a PATA cable to connect such a drive.

In this case fire up regedit.exe with administrative privileges and search for the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
\atapi\Controller0

Set the DWORD value EnumDevice1 to 1 and reboot. In some cases the optical drive will be recognized.

Software blocks drive

I found several forum entries, where Toshiba devices has been shipped with Disc Creator-Tool and Recovery Media Creator. Both programs blocks optical drive detection. After installing these software, and rebooting, the DVD drive has been detected.

Also Sophos anti virus software has been mentioned. Older versions installs filter drivers, that blocks optical drive detection in Windows explorer.


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