Optic Drive No Longer Recognized in Windows 8.1

Question

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

3^rd^ 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!

Answer 1

What worked for me is updating the Initio driver and selecting manually finding driver and selecting one from computer.. the one that has the word storage in it...this is the only thing that worked for me.

Answer 2

The 'Initio' problem affects other external drives as well the ASUS SBW-06D2X-U.  In Windows 8.1, I simply Uninstalled the Initio device in Device Manager (Disabling alone did not work) and plugged my ASUS SBW-06D2X-U in.  Voila!  Worked immediately.

Answer 3

It's definitely the "Initio - Bus Controllers and Ports" update.  I happened to have created a restore point before I installed the Windows Updates of which this was a part.  I restored my system to this restore point and the drive is now working perfectly.  Because I've now had two Windows Updates that created bad problems, I've turned off automatic updates as I don't want anything being installed before I create a restore point.

Answer 4

Hi,

We are glad to know that the issue has been resolved.

However, you can try installing the updates in clean boot state by downloading them from Microsoft download center and check, if you have the KB number of the updates.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/default.aspx

Clean boot: To help troubleshoot error messages and other issues, you can start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This kind of startup is known as a "clean boot." A clean boot helps eliminate software conflicts.

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows 8, Windows 7, or Windows Vista

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: Please refer to the section: How to reset the computer to start as usual after troubleshooting with clean boot of the Kb article to boot the computer in normal startup after fixing the issue.

Let us know about the status of the issue. We would be happy to help you further.

Answer 5

Mr. Mishra,

I would disagree that the issue has been resolved. I have the same issue, but with Windows 7.  Because of this "initio" update my drive no longer works.

Now I have to search back through all of the automatic updates to determine which update caused the problem, undo it and prevent it from updating in the future?

I do NOT have a restore point close to this update and really don't have time to manage my home computer to this degree, I had a drive that was working and a random update stopped it from working?

Any other suggestions other than do a clean install of Windows?