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I really hope someone here can help me out. I have an HP with windows Vista on it. This started a couple of weeks ago, when my gf installed the software for her new digital camera. The drive worked then, she was able to install the files on the CD normally, but ever since then my computer acts like there's no drive at all. it simply doesn't recognize my cd/dvd drive. doesn't matter whether i put in a blank disc, music cd, or dvd, its like the drive doesn't exist. It used to be allocated to "E:" but now its like that allocation never existed. I've gone to several websites to try and solve the problem but nothing's worked. I've done system restore, I've gone through the BIOS screen, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, to no avail. When I go into system tools>device manager>cd/dvd rom drives its still listed there, but when I select it I get this message:Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)I tried 'check for solutions' and nothing happened. I'm all out of ideas. I don't have the original CD's this PC came with or I would try that. I wanted to ask you guys before calling up microsoft and paying by the minute for tech support. Help!
Click 'Check for solutions' to send data about this device to Microsoft and to see if there is a solution available.
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HP should give you tech support for free I believe. I also have an HP and that's what I did when I had some problems a while back. They were actually quite helpful in diagnosing some bad RAM I had.I assume the drive shows up as working in the BIOS, right? I suppose it's possible that the drive just happened to go bad around the same time you installed those drivers and the problems with the registry are just a red herring resulting from Windows trying to query a bad drive. Kind of a stretch, I know, but if you've done a system restore to a point prior to the camera drivers being installed and you've reinstalled the DVD driver and those haven't fixed it, it makes me wonder if it's not a hardware problem masquerading as a driver issue.
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I don't mean to tell you the obvious, but your computer must be fairly old by now, if it still runs Vista. I had the same problem on an older Asus, and I eventually just upgraded from Vista to 7 and the problem was fixed.Also, CD drives are usually the first piece of computer hardware to fail. You can usually buy a replacement off amazon or something for like 20-30 dollars.
If you haven't yet, try finding the model/brand of the CD drive and searching for drivers on their site. Go into device manager and you can see the type of CD drive you have.
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@gskatz said: If you haven't yet, try finding the model/brand of the CD drive and searching for drivers on their site. Go into device manager and you can see the type of CD drive you have.Oh, right, definitely do this first if you haven't. I wasn't sure if you'd reinstalled only the camera drivers or also the CD/DVD ones.
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Start here at HP's site and enter your product codeHP support site
there should be a tag on your PC....
It sounds like the Camera Driver overwrote the CD/DVD drive "driver".
if that doesnt work, you can reset the PC back to "Factory New", but you need to save anything that wasnt installed on the PC when it was brand new. Music, photos and documents are the majority of things you would need to copy. Any aftermarket software you installed, you should already have the disks for and would just need to reload.
if you need more help on the "factory new" restore, just let me know the model name and # and i can get you the proceedures.... (its basically the original operating system disk, but an image stored on a partitioned part of your hard drive)
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punch it. a lot. that usually worked with my Nintendo.
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