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[Tartuf]

It's the best media player, but I just realized that my problem with the DVD-Rom is directly connected with MJ (version 12). After I open MJ and then close it, my DVD-ROM drive just disappears. Completely. The tray doesn't open. It's not even visible in the Device manager list in Windows XP SP2. I have to open the PC (desktop), unplug the DVd-Rom cable, then plug it in back. And voila! DVD-ROM is back. That is before I open MJ another time. Would love to keep it, if somebody can offer a word of advice how to fix this. Thanks.

[JimH]

You may have some other hardware issues.  It's hard to see how MJ could do this to Windows.

[Mr ChriZ]

Wild stab in the dark guess, but you might want to try checking your power supply isn't overloaded.

[bob]

I've seen LOTS and LOTS of bad electrolytic capacitors in power supplies as well as motherboards (they bulge on top and eventually vent. You can sometimes see this by shining a bright light into your power supply and looking around). Any power supply more than a year or two old is suspect. It's getting so bad that some companies, like ASUS for example, advertise their "Japanese solid capacitors" as a feature.

It seems the problem is due to really low quality capacitors from China. I'm guessing that they are not able to run at anywhere near their rated voltage for a long period of time. I've found them in lots of devices from DVD players, network switches, power supplies, motherboards, etc. This is a fairly recent problem (last 5 or 6 years). I've got lots of older stuff with perfectly good capacitors in them. I've even got some Motorola tube radios from the 50's with perfectly good electrolytic capacitors!

What happens the voltage drops slowly and the waveform of the supply voltage gets unstable. Then you start getting weird things happening. You could check the hardware monitor in your BIOS if you have one. If any of the voltages are more than 3 percent or so low then you should suspect the supply.

[Tartuf]

That's really weird. I thought if there's a PSU problem the whole system would go bust. Mine is working fine except for this weird DVD-drive disappearance.

[Frobozz]

I wonder if it could be a cable problem.  If it's an IDE cable try replacing it with a known good cable with 80 strands (40 strand cable is the old standard).

If Windows detects too many errors (often due to cable errors) it will disable DMA mode and revert to PIO mode for that drive.  I don't think that should cause Windows to lose the drive in Device Manager, but I suppose it could in some circumstance.

[Tartuf]

That's what I was thinking too. Could be cable problem. Will try to replace it.