Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

WHEN THE MICROSOFT SOLUTION FAILS: a step-by-step fix for regaining access to missing DVD/CD drives.

Windows error code: “Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)”

A few days ago I ran into an issue where my DVD drives no longer appeared in Windows and were not accessible either. What was strange was that I have two physical DVD drives (a DVD-RW and an Xbox HD DVD drive), as well as a virtual drive provided by Daemon Tools for loading ISOs – yet all three were highlighted with an exclamation mark and the same error code: Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).

The symptoms one would experience are the following:

• You cannot access the CD drive or the DVD drive by using My Computer.
• One of the following error messages appears when you view the CD drive or the DVD drive in Device Manager:

Error message 1
The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31).
Error message 2
A driver for this device was not required, and has been disabled (Code 32 or Code 31).
Error message 3
Your registry might be corrupted. (Code 19) 
• You receive an “error code 39” error message.
• A message that resembles the following appears in the notification area:
Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Like many my first instinct was to Google the error code, and it provided MANY links to individuals citing the issue, and others trying to provide answers; such as, buy a new DVD drive, restart your computer, uninstall iTunes, download new device drivers, etc.  (btw – none of these are correct answers to this particular issue)

However, many links also pointed to a few Knowledge Base articles at Microsoft, a number which are helpful, and a few that no longer exist (e.g. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320553/).

I thought that I had found the answer with the discussion and tips suggested in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060 – which details solutions to the error codes previously mentioned, including Code 19, Code 31, Code 39, and Code 41. The article deals with entering the Registry in Windows, and deleting a few subkeys that point to “filters” relating to the DVD device drivers.

First of all, anytime you deal with the Registry you’re taking a risk… for all intents and purposes the Registry is the internal guts of the Windows installation, and if you make a mistake and delete or change the wrong key, Windows may not load upon restarting. In the forums discussing these issues, even at Microsoft’s own forum, a lot of users were saying, “what files do I need to delete?” or “how do I delete the registry?”. Apparently Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article wasn’t helpful enough to let users know that they need to delete a few subkeys relating to “upper” and “lower” filters in the Registry, and not the parent key or god-forbid the Registry itself.

The worst part is, this issue has apparently been present dating back to Windows 95, and has remained an issue through to Vista. From what I can tell, it appears as though this issue crops up from time to time, and may be associated with an installation or uninstallation that does not complete properly, which is also modifying Registry entries dealing with DVD/CD drives – such as Nero, iTunes, ImgBurn, MagicISO, AnyDVD, Roxio, etc.

In my case, I followed the Knowledge Base article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060) to the letter, fulfilling every step, yet it didn’t solve my problem – I still couldn’t see or access my DVD drives. From the forum feedback, it seemed that many people did find that solution to work… but a sizeable minority did not.

So I decided to keep digging and see what I could find. In the end I came across a Microsoft command-line programme called DevCon, where I was able to query the DVD drives and see what “filters” they were using, and which key it was pointing to in the Registry. It turned out that there were far more deletions that needed to be made (about 6-7 in all), than was suggested by the Microsoft article, but in the end I was able to figure it out, and I thought it would be nice to share the solution to help others stuck in the same situation.

 

THE SOLUTION:

Step 1: Before making any modifications to the registry, BACK IT UP! The process is fairly simple… all you need to do is create a restore point in Vista or XP. Details of how to perform this are located here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/. You can also enter the registry by typing “regedt32” in the “Run…” link on the Start Menu, then once the Registry has opened go to File -> Export… -> choose a name for the file, and MAKE SURE to select “All” under “Export range”, then click “Save”. It will usually take a minute or two, but you now have a copy in case you need to reload the Registry because of mistakes or errors.

It is also highly recommended that you uninstall any programmes that use your DVD or CD drives for burning, ripping, etc. (e.g. iTunes, Nero, IMGburn…) – these can be reinstalled after you’re done removing the culprit Registry entries.

Step 2: Follow the Microsoft recommendation outlined in the KB article under “Method 2: Manually delete the Registry entries” – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060. If you’re really unsure of what you’re doing, follow “Method 1: Guided help to delete the Registry entries”. If following either method, make sure you select the correct key, in this case {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. There are a number of keys surrounding that key which also have references to “filters”, and also have a similar key title, READ OUT ALL OF THE NUMBERS to make sure you’re on the right key – there is only one you should be deleting subkeys from at this stage. In essence, you’re looking for two subkeys which reference “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters”, if both are present, delete both, if only one, that’s okay, just delete that one then.

Step 3: Now exit the Registry and restart your computer… if the drives reappear then you’re finished, well done.

If your DVD and CD drives are still not showing up in Windows, and the error code still appears in the Device Manager, then you’re experiencing the same problem I had, and that requires a few more steps…

Step 4: If deleting the “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters” subkeys didn’t work, then we need to find out which filter the DVD drives are actually using. The Microsoft solution was in a sense, an educated guess. The first thing we need to do is download a programme from Microsoft called DevCon, which is a command-line utility.

From my experiences with technical support, command-line utilities scare a lot of people that don’t do serious Windows or Unix work, but they’re not that scary once you know what to do. First thing is download a command-line utility from Microsoft called DevCon – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272. Under the “MORE INFORMATION” section there is a link that says, “Download the DevCon package now”, do that. The page also says nothing about Vista compatibility, but I can assure you it is compatible with both 32 and 64-bit installations.

When you unzip the file, there are two folders, named i386, and ia64. In most cases you’ll want to use the i386 version, that is for standard Windows, however Vista x64 user should also use the i386 version, as the ia64 files are meant for Itanium processors only. I would suggest that you move the DevCon.exe programme to a simple directory, such as “C:\” or “C:\DevCon”, because you need to access this programme from the Command-line, and you don’t want to have to change a million directories using the “cd” command.

There is a set of instructions that deals with using DevCon for this issue – it’s detailed in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461, look under the “MORE INFORMATION” section. To run DevCon, you want to open the command prompt (type “CMD” in the “Run…” link on the Start Menu), then in the command prompt change directories to where you saved DevCon (typing “cd” for change directory”), and then once at the DevCon folder type “devcon stack gencdrom”. You’ll see a list of cryptic entries, one for each drive that mentions “filters” (see example below).

[CLICK ON SCREENSHOT TO ENLARGE]

Now in the example above, I took this screenshot AFTER I had fixed the problem, presently everything is working and AnyDVD is shown as the filter. However, before it was showing “PxHlpa64”, which was referencing PxHlpa64.sys. This was the culprit in MY CASE, however, in your case it will likely be a different filter.

SIDE NOTE: Sony DRM rootkit issue – if your ‘filter’ shows up as “$sys$crater“, “$sys$aries“, or “$sys$cor“, you probably have a Sony DRM rootkit corruption issue. There are TWO ways to remove the rootkit and restore access to your DVD/CD drives. The first and recommended way is to follow the link to the Sony DRM page, which has instructions and a removal programme that should work fine – which can be found here. At the bottom of the page you will see two links “The XCP software tool is available for download…”, one is to an executable file (recommended), or a Zip file, containing the removal software. Run the programme, restart your computer, and see if your DVD/CD drives have returned.

If not, there is a second and more difficult procedure that may work. The instructions can be found at PC Doctor [PDF link] – thanks to maxwellscott and preacherman1952 for pointing these issues out.

Essentially though, the corruption of Registry entries seems to be the problem (even with the Sony DRM issue), where at some point the DVD/CD driver filters were pointed to the wrong filter, that either no longer exists, or is simply inappropriate, and the DVD drives fail to initialise in Windows.

My solution was to search the Registry for all entries referencing “PxHlpa64” (REMEMBER – your filter will probably be different). That can be accomplished by opening the Registry (type “regedt32” in the “Run…” link on the Start Menu), then in the Registry go to Edit -> Find… -> then type “PxHlpa64” (or whatever your culprit filter is), and then go through each entry (about 6 or 7 in my case), and delete all “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters” subkey entries that were showing up from that search.

Step 5: Exit the Registry and restart the computer. Assuming that you deleted all the bad entries, your DVD and CD drives (including virtual drives) should reappear and be fully functional. After that you can reinstall any programmes you uninstalled before this process, and you should be good to go!

Hope that helped and がんばってね！

Barugon (^_^)

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