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

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?

James_Mitchell mentioned the solution just above me: under Control Panel, select View Devices, find the Initio device, uninstall the driver and then reconnect your optical disc drive. It should then show up in Windows Explorer and work OK.

Answer 4

That worked for me - but only after deleting the driver as well as uninstalling the Initio device. Until I did this the device would reinstall and the optical drive would vanish again.

Answer 5

http://www.asus.com/Optical_Drives/SBW06D2XU/#support_Download