GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE WITH READ PROBLEMS WITH CD DRIVES.

I spent an hour on the phone with microsoft today fixing the problem where the CD drive will only read CD's if you have a CD in the drive when you boot up. It would seem it has to do with a file called DAEMON.EXE in the start up file. It's a hidclass monitoring program. Removing it gets rid of the problem with the drives. The program is generally not needed with XP anyways.

I suspected my problem began when I did the HIDCLASS DRIVER update from microsoft.

A Knowledge Base article will be written soon talking about how to modify the registry to fix the problem. I will be getting the article sooner, and will publish it here as soon as I get it.

John

THANK YOU, THANK YOU !
There is a reference to "Daemon initilize" in the rundll32 startup item in msconfig. Should that be unchecked? Or does the fix require a registry edit?

NO ! NOT the daemon initialize. It's daemon.exe you're looking for and that needs to be removed by a registry edit. The item you are refering to can stay. It will cause no harm.

P.S. If you want to fix it quickly,(before the knowledge base bulletin is released) the safe bet would be to call microsoft tech support, tell them what you know, and they can walk you through it quickly. You do get 2 free warranty shots w / tech support anyways. Worth the cost of the long distance charge.

John