I was fixing a computer the other day and ran across the following
error in Device Manager on the CD-ROM drive.
"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver
may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"
Because of this error, the drive did not show up in My Computer and the
customer was unable to burn CDs or read any CDs.
I uninstalled the drive from Device Manager, rebooted the computer, and
the problem remained, so obviously it appeared to be a registry issue
that I would have to solve. If you are receiving this Code 39 error and
your CD or DVD drive is missing and has a yellow exclamation mark in
Device Manager, I hope this information is useful. This solution can be applied many times to the
Code 19 error with the CD/DVD drive.
To solve this Code 39 error, follow these instructions:
NOTE: After removing these registry keys and rebooting, it may be
necessary to reinstall any CD or DVD recording applications.
1) Close all open programs
2) Click on Start, Run, and type REGEDIT and press Enter
3) Click on the plus signs (+) next to the following folders
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM
- CurrentControlSet
- Control
- Class
- {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
4) This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the
registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.
- UpperFilters
- LowerFilters
- UpperFilters.bak
- LowerFilters.bak
5) If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on
them and choose Delete
6) After deleting the keys, close the Registry Editor
7) Reboot your computer
8) Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have
returned. You may also want to open Device Manager and verify that the
yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone.
Another possible CD/DVD issue you may want to investigate
How
to Correct Missing Copy to CD option in My Pictures in Windows XP
If you have Adaptec Easy CD Creator, you may be receiving an
Error Code 31 instead of Error Code 39, the same procedure above will
work for the Error Code 31, 32, or 39.