CD/DVD Drive not recognized after installing windows 10

The DVD drive worked fine prior to installing Win 10 - now the computer doesn't recognize it. Win 10 apparently thinks it is a removable drive. The CD-DVD drive is recognized in BIOS.

How do I diagnose the problem??

Thanks

Put something in the drive! That's it! See for yourself with a look at the two images of two separate File Explorer windows in view one for the host pc and another from a second remote pc kept the same while the view changes on the first.



The first screen shows something similar while you can still see a difference in drives on two separate machines entirely the "Unspecified" area of the explorer windows still show optical drives there and not above. Seems 10 has put those into a different category entirely!



Now when hitting one little arrow to close up the hard drives section what's this? Since both sections to look as far as optical drives are kept apart you now see a totally separate optical drive come into view being the second of the two dvd drives on the main build here which just happens to have something in it namely a recovery cd used only when booted live from it in order to restore a system image. Otherwise without anything in the D drive it would be seen down below along side the E drive. with the I drive being the virtual not physical drive included.

If you right click on an ISO file and select the Mount option you would see it opened in the I drive. That would likely be seen above as well. But essentially since something was in the D drive it is seen by Windows 10 as being an "active" drive not simply one more external drive left plugged in. In the first screen you will also notice a K drive which a hard drive inside an external enclosure using a usb port at present until later seeing the eSata ports connected on the case itself.

The drive that came with the pc suggests the drive itself is likely the problem! Even on the custom builds here I've ended up replacing not one but pairs of optical drives even having a 3rd added in on this case being an old cd not dvd burner with a longer case up in the top bay since the dvd drives kept failing to burn VCDs or video cd projects and acted up where I was going back and forth from the first Sata dvd drives back to PIDE and now back to a new pair of Sata once again.

Want to talk about annoyances? Those would make your day! One thing at a time you can try is moving the data cable over to another port after the system is shut down completely of course which will then allow for a completely fresh detection of the drive as well as see if the port is at question. If you see the same the data cable is then the suspect item to be replaced. And if you still end up seeing the exact same problem Drive Suspect #1 it becomes where you replace that! Been there done that enough times!

I know it can be a real pain at times to get things like this sorted out. And on an occasion or two at some later point having tossed a drive aside it was found to suddenly work on an entirely different system despite all that! Simply swapping out drives saw results whether the drive was still good or bad! That's when you can call it a Real Pain in something!

Hi, this is relatively commonly reported.
You could try this:
Solved Windows 10 - my dvd/cd drive is not recognised, at all - Windows 10 Forums

It's one of the more common problems seen with Windows in general not being version specific but having been numerous times especially for Legacy through XP. With the free upgrade having started off with the 10240 build that accounts for any number of bugs when upgrading from 7and 8.1 as well but more so from 7 being that 10 is three versions newer!

What people need to know is that there is a larger gap there then most even realize and upgrade type installs themselves are notorious for being "Buggy as all H"! At least at this time you no longer even need to see an upgrade but can either enter the product key either from the previous version or one bought for 10 like it was here in order to key 7 running on a second drive.

Many however either lack the experience at OSing a system or are worried a great deal about losing what they have on their system whether it be personal files or programs that would need to be bought all over such as a few here that will eventually go anyways but for the time being run on 7 there. This is how the drives mentioned earlier being two recently added optical as well as the two OS drives and two storage/backup drives would be seen in the Computer Management and why you apparently saw a buggy upgrade explaining why the entire DVD item in the Device Manager is missing entirely!



You can try the technique mentioned at the top of the other thread there but still may end up needing to see either a repair or clean install in order to get this cleared up. If you did an upgrade and the bugs are slowly revealing themselves the clean install would be the preferred move! For the additional effort at seeing thing start off fresh again you would end up with a better OS.

You could end up seeing a fresh detection of the existing drive by simply unplugging the data cable after shutting down completely. You then run the system for a cycle without it plugged in and then shutdown and plug it back in and even select a different port if that is a sata not ide dvd drive you have there which is most common at this late date! If the drive or cable is toast the drive will still be seeing the same problem once replugged. An old drive tossed in to replace it would see a fresh detection as well and if still in good shape would likely show up.

The problems I had here on the present build now 5yrs. old wasn't the disappearing drive but having a drive or two that suddenly stopped working or was troublesome and simply had to go! Yet while the first sata type optical simply fell apart inside! the others in pairs would see one or the other act up and later seeing both replaced. When replacing the replacements which were two ide to replace the one failed sata about a year or two ago those two got replaced with a new pair of 24x sata dvd drives where one was replaced during the fall when acting up showing even with the good brand names they can go at any time or simply act up at any time without warning! A little bit of dust gets in or the lazer quits on you.

You're certainly most welcome! :) It can be a real pain at times no doubt there at all!

The issue I kept running into however wasn't the lack of any drive showing in any explorer window but not able to burn any disk. On some occasions only dvd-r media might see a projects burn while the same brand of cd-r wouldn't. At other times with other brands the dvd-rs wouldn't? while the cd-rs would! Tossed enough frisbies around over the years!

On the few instances where a drive wouldn't show up at all I made sure to stick some disk whether a software disk, vcd, or simply any blank disk in the drive so something would be present. The volume on the disk even a blank will help id the drive while in the Disk Management tool there where if you see the volume you simply right click on that to use the change drive letter option. You would need a disk in any optical drive anyways to see the drive letter changed. But this will also initialize the drive or allow Windows the second chance to redetect it when vanishing off the radar?!

Just tossing a few ideas around here. But if your drive is still good as new the cable and port it's plugged into then become the two most likely suspects. Dust and dirt particles getting in there is a bit more common while even a cable that got loose at either end drive or board can't be ruled out either! Sometimes it will turn out to be the "stupidest of things" as the expression that will solve the problem! This is one reason I tend to always keep spare drive cables on hand since even sata cables can become flaky.