I have updated drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled both devices without results. The problem arose in connection with attempts to change drive icons. Now when I open the Properties Tab on Drive F, the DVD, in My Computer I get a dialogue box with the General Tab displaying a generic CD. Under the Hardware Tab all the disk drives are displayed including my DVD by name. It is not highlighted however but the harddrive is. It therefore seems that the DVD icon on My Computer is pointing to the harddrive instead of the actual DVD. This is the same with the CD, Drive G. I have looked on my other PCs and when I get to the Hardware Tab it does highlight the actual device. To compound matters my old Drive E which was my CD is now a Memory Slot. How do I fix this issue?
CD, DVD, not working, My Computer drive letters changed, and seem to point to another device.
- Thread starter jljking
- Start date
Solution
TenPc
Honorable
- Jul 11, 2012
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You can do a repair to icons but it is rarely successful and sometimes converts the desktop icons for programs and games to blanks.
Go into Folder Options, you may be able to change the way folder icons are displayed.
Drive letters change when you remove the cabling from a cd/dvd or hdd but then forget which cable goes where and put them on different cables. Usually happens when changing hdd's or trouble shooting hardware.
All drives other than primary drive are more or less just "extras" so you could change the cabling or drive letters but your short cuts for files would no longer work, any programs or games that were installed to those other drives may also have problems.
A usb device like an internet USB device actually creates a "CD" drive, it's not really, it's a virtual space it creates on the fly and disappears after toy you remove the device.
A memory stick does create a drive letter but that, too, also changes when it's removed unless you assign that drive letter only for that device.
When you first installed the OS, the CD/DVD drive would have been set to Second Primary, the Primary being the hard drive itself, assuming PATA cable drives. Sata is a bit different, they don't actually have set primary, secondoary slave attributes.
Are you using 80 pin cable (flat cable about 1 inch wide) PATA hdd's or SATA or a mixture of both?
Go into Folder Options, you may be able to change the way folder icons are displayed.
Drive letters change when you remove the cabling from a cd/dvd or hdd but then forget which cable goes where and put them on different cables. Usually happens when changing hdd's or trouble shooting hardware.
All drives other than primary drive are more or less just "extras" so you could change the cabling or drive letters but your short cuts for files would no longer work, any programs or games that were installed to those other drives may also have problems.
A usb device like an internet USB device actually creates a "CD" drive, it's not really, it's a virtual space it creates on the fly and disappears after toy you remove the device.
A memory stick does create a drive letter but that, too, also changes when it's removed unless you assign that drive letter only for that device.
When you first installed the OS, the CD/DVD drive would have been set to Second Primary, the Primary being the hard drive itself, assuming PATA cable drives. Sata is a bit different, they don't actually have set primary, secondoary slave attributes.
Are you using 80 pin cable (flat cable about 1 inch wide) PATA hdd's or SATA or a mixture of both?
Since posting I have done considerable work on this issue. Bottom line the USB device and the DVD have have switched roles. The DVD is acting like a Memory Stick and vise versa. I am sure this happened while I was trying to change the icon for the USB. Therefore I think the solution is to change the USB, Memory Stick back to the DVD icon. This I have not figured out yet. Got lots of information about changing the Registry but no one has given me specific steps to follow. I don't know how to assign a value to a Registry entry for example. Any ideas? Thanks for your help.
TenPc
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- Jul 11, 2012
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A USB device has the same icon as the hdd, the cd/dvd drive has an icon that looks like a disk sitting on the hdd icon.
Insert the usb stick, close the option to view files, then insert a CD or dvd, close the option to view -
From the tool bar in Explorer, Tools > Folder Options > File Types > Advanced
The Advanced option allows you to change the icon for drives.
System icons in XP are stored in the shell32.dll
Insert the usb stick, close the option to view files, then insert a CD or dvd, close the option to view -
From the tool bar in Explorer, Tools > Folder Options > File Types > Advanced
The Advanced option allows you to change the icon for drives.
System icons in XP are stored in the shell32.dll
Thank you so much for the help. I got frustrated with the whole thing and went ahead and installed an upgrade O/S. That did the trick. Everything went back to its proper place and function. I will have to be more careful in the future. Thanks again.
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