Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Cannot Access Your DVD Drive After Installing Windows 7?

Posted: 08 Nov 2009 03:11 AM PST

So you just installed Windows 7 on your home computer and are happily going about enjoying the new operating system until you suddenly find out you are no longer able to access the DVD drive!

Unfortunately, there are certain DVD drives that have issues with Windows 7. The DVD drives will stop functioning altogether. Luckily, there are a few ways to fix the problem so that you can continue using the same DVD drive with Windows 7.

A couple of the models that are known to be effected include:

Sony BC-5100S DVD
Sony BC-5600S DVD
TSST TS-L633B DVD+/-RW

If you are having this issue, you can do two things to try and fix it.

Method 1 – Update the firmware

The easiest fix for this problem is to try and upgrade the firmware for the DVD drive. Get the model # for the drive and then go to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest firmware.

Method 2 – Disable Adaptive Link Power Management

Windows 7 has this new features called ALPM (Adaptive Link Power Management) that basically puts hardware to sleep after 100 ms of idle time so that less power is used.

It's a really great power-savings feature, however, it does not work well with some devices, including DVD and CD drives.

In order to get the drive to work, you have to disable ALPM. You can do this by opening a command prompt (Start, Run, CMD) and typing in the following commands:

powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0

Make sure you press Enter after each command. Not the prettiest solution out there, but it'll get your drive back up and running! Enjoy!