Where'd it all go?

[scobles]

I realised a few weeks ago that my DVD writer was being recognised by my PC as a CD-ROM drive. For what difference this makes, I'll let you know I'm running a Vista OS.
Trying to check for errors or update/reinstall drivers gave me messages that the device was working normally. I bought a new device (the original one was 5 years old anyway) but it was still only seen as a CD-ROM drive.
I have had a problem like this before; something similar happened when I installed iTunes on my PC. I uninstalled it, deleted the upperfilter/lowerfilter using regedit and rebooted to find that the device was returned to normal. This time there is nothing so obvious in the registry to alter, and I really don't know how I can get my device working again.
There is one other thing; my drive partition details are missing from the disk management tool. The only thing it shows it a CD drive. Is this in any way related? Or is my PC doubly messed up as I think it is...

Sorry if I left out critical information. If you wish to know anything else about my system I'll post it here as soon as possible. Thanks in advance!

 

[sub mesa]

Seen as CD drive by whom/what? You use Nero? Does it say its not a burner?

Maybe you could post a screenie from the disc management window.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Go into the devise manager and uninstall and reboot and let it find it again.

 

[scobles]

Seen as CD drive by whom/what? You use Nero? Does it say its not a burner?

Maybe you could post a screenie from the disc management window.

Heres what it looks like. A whole loada nothing really...

 

[sub mesa]

Weird. Its a PATA device that burner? If yes, does it have other devices on the same cable? Does everything get detected in the System BIOS properly? (HDD/DVD)

 

[sminlal]

Heres what it looks like. A whole loada nothing really...

It's totally normal for any optical disk to show up as "CDROMn" in Disk Management. You'll still be able to read and burn both CDs and DVDs.

 

[scobles]

Weird. Its a PATA device that burner? If yes, does it have other devices on the same cable? Does everything get detected in the System BIOS properly? (HDD/DVD)

It is true that the device is P-ATA, but there is nothing else connected on the same cable. The device is a Samsung, model: SH-S222A/RSBF

It's totally normal for any optical disk to show up as "CDROMn" in Disk Management. You'll still be able to read and burn both CDs and DVDs.

Should be able to, but cannot. I can read DVDs still, but I'm unable to burn CDs or DVDs.

Also, I know this could be a separate problem, but is there anything I can do to make my drive partition details visible in the disk manager tool again? I tried to fix my problems using the Vista install disk last night, but I cannot perform a repair installation as it could not find 400Mb of free partition space with which to boot from disk. I have nearly 100Gb free across my 7 drive partitions on three hard-disks

 

[scobles]

Too tricky, eh?

Well, in the end I backed up whatever was on the hard disk with the system partition, disconnected the other drives and re-installed Vista. Got no problems now; all drives visible and DVD-R fully operational. If you're reading this in a similar fix, re-installing your OS should be considered as a last resort. But it works...