Cdrom missing in Windows
Several different things could cause the BIOS to recognise the cdrom yet it is not seen in Windows.
First let's check for something in the Device Manager.
  1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties.
  2. Select the Device Manager tab.
  3. Double click on Hard Disk Controllers.
  4. Double click your IDE Controller.
  5. Select the Settings tab.
  6. In the Dual IDE Channel Settings box, select Both IDE Channels Enabled.
  7. Click OK and OK again.
  8. Restart your computer.
If you still experience problems after trying the above you will need to go into your registry and search for an entry called NoIDE and delete it.
  1. Click on Start and Run.
  2. Type regedit and click OK.
  3. Select Edit and Find.
  4. Type NoIDE and click on Find.
    Note: NoIDE is case sensitive.
  5. Delete the entry if found.
It is in the following location within the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\
SERVICES\VXD\IOS

If you are not familiar with editing the registry you can download the NoIDE.reg file I made and it will remove the entry if it exist for you.

Another thing that will cause the problem is a device is running in compatibility mode. To find out if you have a device that is running in MS-DOS Compatibility Mode right click on My Computer and select Properties.
Select the Performance tab. It will display anything running in MS-DOS Compatibility Mode.
Several things can cause this, first let's check and make sure real-mode drivers being loaded by the autoexec.bat and config.sys files are not causing the problem.

  1. Click on Start and Run.
  2. Type msconfig and click on OK.
  3. Selcect the Advanced tab.
  4. Under Selective StartUp uncheck autoexec.bat and config.sys
  5. Click on OK.
  6. When prompted to restart the computer click on NO.
  7. Remove the NoIDE entry in the registry.
  8. Now restart the computer.
  9. If your cdrom is now present the problem is with real-mode drivers being loaded in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files.
The NoIDE entry will be created by Windows when you start your computer if there is a problem loading the device drivers.
Therefore it is very important that you delete the NoIDE entry after making the changes in msconfig before restarting the computer.

A MBR virus can also cause the problem.

  1. Create a clean, write protected boot floppy.
    If you don't write protect the floppy the virus can get transferred to it and the vicious cycle of reinfection starts again.
  2. Boot the computer with the floppy.
  3. Type fdisk /mbr [Enter]
Listed below are several different senarios in which you do not want to perform the fdisk /mbr command.
  • You are dual booting the computer.
  • You are using a drive overlay program.
  • You have more than 4 partitions created.
The next thing I would suggest trying is installing the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard. I have recently seen this to be the cause of the problem. You can obtain those from the manufacture of the computer or motherboard.

If this is not a hardware problem and just came out of the blue you could restore the registry to a previous date prior to the problem occuring. Windows normally keeps 5 backups of the registry. It will create a backup once per day when the computer is restarted. Go here to find out more on backing up and restoring the registry.

A word of caution: If you restore the registry to a date prior to the problem you will have to reinstall any software you installed after the restore date

Credit also goes to DAVEINCAPS and Krystyna for the information provided.

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Best Regards and Wishes,
Mesich and The Count