Yesterday, I uninstalled Roxio Easy Media Creator as it was causing some issues.. The UNINSTALL went smoothly but since I wanted to do a clean reinstall , I needed to clean out the registry, I deleted all the ENTIRES suggested by Roxio support.

It was after doing this that I noticed that my CD Rom and DVD were no longer working, they were no longer displayed in Device Manager, apparently one of the Reg entires that I deleted should not have been deleted..

The CD Rom and DVD both show in 'my computer' .. and I can see files.. but any APP that uses the CD or DVD cannot detect they are there..

I have tried virtually every fix I've come across, deleting the upper and LOWER buffers.. removing both IDE controllers and then reinstalling them, driver upgrades.. etc.. Spent about an hour on the phone with MS support today.. and in the end the only thing they suggested was a repair install..

Today I even added an external USB DVD burner and device manager cannot find it either.. though it also shows up in my computer...

If I install, the windows DVD, it will auto run.. in any of the drives.. but if I put a music CD into any of the drives the associated APP will launch but then ERROR

I'm running win XP SP2 home edition..
system restore is off..

I really don't want to do a repair install if I don't have to..

any ideas that I have not tried??System Restore ? ?
And post what Roxio suggested you change in the registry...there may be an error there.