Even though compact disc like CD drive is not commonly used as before, some people still depend on it as they may need it to collect favorite music or install system. Generally, you can find the CD drive in File Explorer shortly after inserting it. However, there may be a delay because of network reasons or faulty CD drive.

Thus, many people complain Windows 10 won’t recognize CD drive on some forums, seeking for help from other users. In this post, I’ll show you the reasons for this problem and some methods to solve it. Please keep on reading. 

What’s the Situation When Windows 10 Won’t Recognize CD Drive

The situation that Windows 10 doesn’t recognize CD drive can be divided into two parts:

• CD drive is not showing in Disk Management. You need to fix the issue right now.
• CD drive is not recognized in Windows Explorer. You may consider data recovery from it. 

Symptoms of CD Drive Not Working

① Windows 10 won’t recognize CD drive in File Explorer

You can’t find it in Windows Explorer after you inserted it to your computer. 

② CD drive is not visible in Device Manager Windows 10

When you fail to find the connected CD drive in Device Manager or Disk Management, maybe there is something wrong with the CD drive. In this case, try updating the drivers to the newest version to see if the problem can be solved. 

③ Optical Drive icon is lost

If you encounter this case, the icon of optical drive (CD or DVD drive) is lost from This PC. As usual, this CD drive doesn’t work normal in other devices, either.

④ Windows 10 CD drive is denied to access

You may get an access denied error when you try opening the CD drive or other kinds of storage devices. Upon this occasion, it is necessary to perform a data recovery as you can’t access to data stored in the drive.

Common Reasons for CD Drive Not Showing up

• The CD drive gests hardware problems.
• The driver of CD drive is outdated or corrupted.
• The registry is corrupted, needing to be repaired.

How to Fix the Issue Windows 10 Won’t Recognize CD Drive

Case 1: CD Drive Is Not Showing up in Device Manager

Here, I come up with several solutions to CD drive not showing up in Device Manager. Just move on to the following section.

Fix 1. Show Hidden CD/DVD Drives

① Right click Start button and click Device Manager.

② Click View on the menu bar.

③ Click Show hidden devices from the menu.

Fix 2. Delete Corrupted Registry

① Press Start + R to open Run dialog and enter regedit in it. Press Enter to go on. 

② Follow this path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM, and then choose CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Class. And then select {4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}.

③ Find UpperFilters and LowerFilters to delete them. 

④ Exit Registry Editor, and then restart computer.

Fix 3. Update or Reinstall Driver

① Go to Device Manager and locate DVD/CD-ROM drives. Just expand it. 

② Right click on the CDs or DVDs. 

③ Here you have 3 choices: 

• Just click Update Driver Software… if you choose to update it. 
• If you intend to uninstall and reinstall the driver, please choose Uninstall. 
• If you need to re-enable the driver, please click Disable Device and then Enable Device to enable it again.  

④ Restart the computer.

Fix 4. Run Troubleshooter

① Open Control Panel.

② Find and click Troubleshooting.

③ Go to the Hardware and Sound link.

④ Click Hardware and Devices in Find section.

⑤ Complete the follow-up operation in the guidance of the instructions. 

Case 2: CD Drive Is Not Recognized in File Explorer

Don’t worry when you can’t find CD drive in Windows Explorer. Please check it again in Disk Management (right click This PC > choose Manage > click Disk Management). 

If the CD drive can be found there, please check whether it has a drive letter and it’s set online. 

If the CD drive doesn’t appear, you are suggested to rescue data from it using a professional data recovery program. 

How to Recover Data from Problematic CD Drive

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is the software that can help you recover data from the CD drive. You can download it free from website, and then install it on your computer. 

Step 1: Run MiniTool Power Data Recovery and get to the main interface. 

Step 2: Select CD/DVD Drive recovery module (designed for compact disc data recovery) to begin.

Step 3: Choose the CD drive, which is connecting to computer and click Scan to go on. Wait patiently for the scanning process. 

Step 4: While waiting for the scanning process, you can see more and more found files, listing in the corresponding folders on left panel. You can browse them and check whether what you need is found. If the needed files don’t come into sight, just wait for the end of the process. 

Step 5: After browsing all scanning results, add a checkmark to the needing files. And then, click Save to store the selected files to the default or specified storage path.

That’s all for the data recovery from CD drive. If your DVD drive fails to work, please follow this guide to restore data as the steps for data recovery from DVD are the same as it.

Final Words

It’s very likely to come across CD drive not working issue due to many reasons, such as Windows 10 won’t recognize CD drive, so take it easy as it not as terrible as many people thought. 

After reading this post, I guess you’ve had an idea how to solve this issue. Just follow the methods to fix it one by one to make your CD drive appear and work again. 

In order to protect your data on CD drive safe, it is necessary to make a backup regularly. Hope these tips are helpful to you.