Windows 8.1 no longer recognizes my external optic drive. I checked the drive on a Windows 7 computer and the drive itself works fine. Everything used to work fine on my laptop, but then it suddenly quit showing up in File Explorer. I have not installed any new software in the time between when the drive worked and now when it doesn’t work.
My system:
ASUS VivoBook S500CA-US71T
3rd Gen Intel Core i7-3517U
BIOS 204
Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center 64-bit
The external optic drive:
ASUS SBW-06D2X-U
Here are some things I’ve tried-
Control Panel > Hardware and Sounds > Devices and Printers > Troubleshooting my laptop. The only problem detected was Virtual Bluetooth Support (which I will address at a future date as my Bluetooth devices are working properly).
I inspected the following registry values for an UpperFilter and LowerFilter value, deleting the UpperFIlter value I found in CurrentControlSet
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
I contacted ASUS support and they recommended restoring default BIOS settings, which I did. Their other suggestion was to do a clean re-install of Windows. Very reluctant to do this as I JUST did a clean re-install of Windows less than a month ago because of video driver failures after upgrading to Windows 8.1. Also, because the optic drive was previously working fine in Windows 8.1 and then just quit, who’s to say it won’t happen again?
I can’t find anything in Device Manager to uninstall because I would love for Windows to simply redetect the device. On 11/17, I installed the optional Windows Update “Initio – Bus Controllers and Ports – Initio Default Controller.” In Device Manager, I now see Initio Combo Device Class > Initio Default Controller when I plug in my optic drive. Should I try uninstalling this device, or try and uninstall the Windows Update or see if I have a Restore Point prior to 11/17?
Thanks!
