Hi, My HP CD-rw all the sudden are not detected on my Windows 2000 computer. They show up in the bios during start-up and are listed in the device manager with a yellow exclamation point thru them. Under driver details a message is listed, "Your registry may be corrupted". Is there a procedure I can change in the registry to get the CD-roms recognized or do what I dread and thats reinstalling my OS. I have everything backed-up on CDR's but they are no value if I can't get my system to access the drives. Any suggestions would be most helpful. Thanx again, Saulgun@aol.com

You may have to restore or fix the registry. Go to this link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;322755

Probable corrupted registry and/or profile. Try Scanreg. Windows 2k has a DOS version (scanreg) and a windows version (scanregw). Here are the command line operators for both: To restore the backup manually Restart in DOS mode Type scanreg /restore Select latest backup ScanReg and ScanRegW /backup Backs up the registry with no prompts to the user. /comment= Specifies that a comment is attached to the backup, which is displayed with /restore ScanRegW only /autoscan Scans the registry files every time it is run, but only backs up once per day. /scanonly Scans the registry files and returns an error level. Does not back up. ScanReg only /restore Displays a list of backup files available, sorted by date and time of the backup /fix Repairs the registry files Error Codes 2 The registry is bad 0 No problems found -2 Not enough memory; free some memory -3 File not found; one or both of the registry files are missing -4 Unable to create User.dat or System.dat -5 Reading the registry failed -6 Writing to the registry failed -7 Sharing violation (protect mode only); another application has the registry open If that fails, try a System Restore to a date before the issue started.

System Restore feature does not exist in Windows 2000. It only applies to Windows ME and Windows XP.

Indeed. I sit corrected. After typing out all that reg-junk it somehow crept into my brain that he was running xp. TGIF!! -SJ