I assumed it's on your Secondary Master...is that set to Auto in the BIOS?

Try putting the drive in another PC to assure it's not fucked.

EDIT: read your post again. Don't bother checking to see if it's defective.

Get a Windows CD and reinstall your OS - you won't lose any files, but the OS will restore default settings.

Hmmmm... it will restore my Registry to the way it was but everything else will remain as is?

I'm just wondering why all of a sudden it wouldn't work like that... never had a problem with a CDROM before... just very strange! Or maybe I can find the settings in the Registry and manually edit? Does anyone know the tag in the registry to change the mapping of my CDROM?

It's highly unlikely that you can edit one single registry key to resolve this issue, let alone find one that is the culprit. You probably attracted some malware or a virus that did this.

If you can, your best bet would be to backup and reformat if you can do so without this CD drive.

Reinstalling your OS will replenish the defective files, but it will not make everything as crystal clear as a reformat would. I only reinstall the OS if a reformat is not feasible, but with the BS you go through to get all of your settings back to where you want them, it's usually less of a hassle to reformat.

I'm certain it's not a virus... I just did a fresh format about a week ago and anything I've installed since is very clean. I've got my computer so well protected from virii and spyware it'd be nearly impossible that it was affected by a virus.

I'm wondering if Nero tried to adjust some registry files using its defaults... and screwed up the mapping of where my actual CDROM is...

Shitty... I really didn't wanna reformat again.. I finally got it all set up the way I wanted it again!!!

Try that CD rom drive on the other computer first, it is possible that that drive fried.

If that drive works fine on another pc then the problem is your BIOS. I don't think it is windows or any windows program that could fuck up the drive.

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Volodymyr

It's highly unlikely that two defective drives exhibit the same faulty symptoms.

Something goofy is going on...did you run all of your Windows Updates? Is there a drive letter conflict in Disk Management?

Try uninstalling Nero if you believe that is the culprit, and since you've just reformatted, just run the OS CD again. If that doesn't work, reformat.

Ok thanks for the tips guys... I forgot to check the disk management....

I have updated with every Windows Update and every virus update...

what I'll do is uninstall Nero... check disk management... see if theres conflicts... and go from there. I'm at work right now, so I'll have to try in a bit...

Question... if I reinstall Windows, will it keep my desktop and programs all the same? I've always just reinstalled after a format...

but regardless... thanks!!

Upon reinstall, your profile is basically wiped out, meaning all files on your hard drives remain intact, and your Desktop, Start Menu, Favorites, My Docs are all reset.

You *could* back up your user profile in the Doc & Settings directory, but beware that could be the problem, so backup the new default profile before restoring that one in case it fucks you all over again.

BTW, I'm *only* supporting a reinstall because you just reformatted, but beware that even a few minutes on the Web with no firewall in action could have -ed your OS, or even something you DLed or attracted after that, so a reformat could be in order. I would, however, check the drive(s) for workability on another system before doing that, just in case the one in a million is true.

Also, DL the latest drives from the mfctr Web site.

Good luck...

I know when I had a problem with my registry I always did a red edit and auto fix...... it usualy took care of the problem for me.

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Great dancers aren't great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.”

Well I managed to locate some instructions about how to remove the conflict from the registry... seems to be a pretty common problem.. and other people seemed to find it occuring with Nero also.... Doubt anyone would search this forum for a solution like this.. but I figure I'll post it anyways

(you may want to backup your registry before doing this)
(i didnt and everything worked out fine, but thats me lol)
START > RUN (type in: REGEDIT) click OK
click '+' beside HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
click '+' beside SYSTEM
click '+' beside CONTROLSET00# (<-- see EX1 below)
click '+' beside CONTROL
click '+' beside CLASS
click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
on the righthand window, you may see, UpperFilters & Lowerfilters
right click on them and delete them.

(EX1) for above CONTROLSET00#
You may have one controlset folder number 001.
You could have many. Follow the above steps for each one.

REBOOT. Should be no more conflicts now cd-rom wise anyhow

If thats the cd-rom, what would the cd-rw be under???