Knowledge Base

You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: "error code 31"

Article ID: 314060

Article Last Modified on 4/16/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional

This article was previously published under Q314060

SUMMARY

After you remove a program from your computer, you can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive successfully. The CD drive or the DVD drive does not appear. Or, you receive an error message when you try to access the drive. This article contains two methods to resolve this problem. One of the methods requires that you manually modify the Windows registry to remove the UpperFilters registry entry and the LowerFilters registry entry. You must restart the computer after you follow the steps in this article.

This article is intended for a beginning to intermediate computer user.

You may find it easier to follow the steps if you print this article first.

Symptoms of the problem

In Microsoft Windows XP, after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program, or after you remove a different program, you experience the following symptoms:

You cannot access the CD drive or the DVD drive by using My Computer.
One of the following error messages appears when you view the CD drive or the DVD drive in Device Manager:

Error message 1

The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31).

Error message 2

A driver for this device was not required, and has been disabled (Code 32 or Code 31).

Error message 3

Your registry might be corrupted. (Code 19)
You receive an "error code 39" error message.
A message that resembles the following appears in the notification area:

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Methods to resolve the problem

ACW

Method 1: Guided Help to delete the registry entries

Note We recommend that you uninstall all CD recording or CD writing programs before you delete the registry entries. You can reinstall any programs that you use after you resolve this problem.

Guided Help is available to delete the registry entries that can cause CD access problems. Guided Help can automatically perform the steps for you.

The actions that this Guided Help performs can be undone after Guided Help is finished. To undo this Guided Help, run Guided Help again. On the Welcome page, click Undo this Guided Help, and then follow the instructions.

For more information about Guided Help, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

915092 Description of Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base articles

Requirements to install and to use this Guided Help

You must be logged on to Windows by using a computer administrator account to install and to use this Guided Help.
You must be running Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to install and to use this Guided Help.

You must first download Guided Help. To start, click the following link. Download Guided Help

Method 2: Manually delete the registry entries

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure that you back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.Log on to Windows by using an account that has administrator rights and permissions. Then, follow these steps.

Step 1: Start Registry Editor

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Registry Editor starts.

Step 2: Delete the UpperFilters registry entry

In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
Expand Control, and then expand Class.
Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters.

Note An UpperFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the UpperFilters registry entry, you must click UpperFilters and not UpperFilters.bak.
On the Edit menu, click Delete.
When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the UpperFilters registry entry:

Are you sure you want to delete this value?

The UpperFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.

Note Do not exit Registry Editor. You must have this program for the next step.

Step 3: Delete the LowerFilters registry entry

In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
Expand Control, and then expand Class.
Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters.

Note An LowerFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the LowerFilters registry entry, you must click LowerFilters and not LowerFilters.bak.
On the Edit menu, click Delete.
When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the LowerFilters registry entry:

Are you sure you want to delete this value?

The LowerFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.
Exit Registry Editor.

Step 4: Restart the computer

If a CD recording program no longer works after you restart the computer, you must reinstall the CD recording program.

Microsoft KB Archive/314060

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