Access to CD/DVD Drive is Denied through Windows 7 Explorer (Permission Problem)

06
2014-04
  • Synetech

    A while ago I started having trouble with my optical drives. Both of them keep showing up in Explorer as CD/DVD drives on boot, but as soon as I put a disc in either one, it suddenly turns into a hard-drive—“local disk” is displayed in the Type column, though the File System column remains UDF/CDFS. (I though that maybe it was a permission issue on the registry key in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet..., but I’m not so certain because of the next test.)

    Here’s a screencast of My Computer; when I put in a disc, the DVD drive magically turns into a hard-disk and cannot be opened.

    When I try to open a disc (of any type), I get an access denied error message. If I open an elevated command-prompt, I am able to access the files. Also, if I kill Explorer and run it from an elevated command-prompt (thus giving Explorer elevated permissions), then I can access the files from Explorer.

    I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the devices without success. The security dialog indicates that there are none set for the drives (no owner and no permissions). I tried setting the owner, but am only able to do so if there is a disc in it (it complains if it is empty), but the settings do not stick (if I immediately open the security dialog after setting it, it is empty again). I tried setting permissions, but that gives an error.

    I’ve included a screencap-flowchart of the security dialog of one of the drives below.

    I suspect that the problem is with the registry entries related to optical drives in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet. For example, the Properties subkey in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} is conspicuously absent. Worse, I cannot figure out what should be in it or import one from a backup hive because the Properties subkeys in …\Class have some sort of “super-admin” permissions—I cannot even view the permissions or owner on these! It does say however that I can change them, but I don’t know what account owns or has permissions for them (my guess would be TrustedInstaller—or something).

    (Yes, I made sure that there are no upper- or lower-filters, and yes, I ran sfc. I also made sure that in the policy editor, “devices: restrict CD-ROM...” and “removable storage access” are not set.)

    Does anyone know what the owner and permissions are supposed to be for optical drives and how to reset them?

    enter image description here

    • Answers
  • harrymc

    This behavior is very puzzling, so all I can offer are some hints and more questions.

    It would help to know whether the CD/DVD drive is shared. If it is, maybe unsharing can help.

    Second, whether you have a CD-burning software installed, such as Nero. You might try to uninstall such software to see if this makes a difference.

    Third, run gpedit.msc and check Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / Removable Storage Access. Verify that "CD and DVD: Deny read access" is disabled or not configured. In effect, all the options should be not configured.

    You might also try to see what happens with "sfc /scannow" as described in
    How to Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker.

    The last resort is following How to Do a Repair Install to Fix Windows 7, which will refresh your Windows files without requiring the reinstallation of applications.

    Some anti-virus scans might also be useful.

  • Synetech

    Well, it turns out that I was right; it was indeed the missing Properties key in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. It took several steps to fix, but actually not that long overall (especially compared to the three or so weeks I’ve been living with and working around the problem).

    1. Grabbed a an offline copy of the SYSTEM hive from my previous installation of Windows-7 (the backup in %systemroot%\System32\Config\RegBack has the same problem)
    2. Mounted it in my current copy (> reg load hku\z system)
    3. Ran Regedit and navigated to HKU\z\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
    4. Opened the permissions dialog for the Properties key, ignoring the errors and warnings about not being allowed to view permissions for the key
    5. Switched to Owner tab and set permission to myself
    6. Switched to main tab and added myself to the ACL and assigned full-control
    7. Refreshed and successfully viewed the Properties key and its contents
    8. Exported the key to a .REG file
    9. Unmounted the backup SYSTEM hive (> reg unload hku\z)
    10. Edited the .REG file to change the key (HKEY_USERS\z -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)
    11. Imported the updated .REG file
    12. Navigated to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} in the registry
    13. Opened permissions dialog for Properties (no errors this time)
    14. In Owners tab, switched owner from myself to the virtual user SYSTEM
    15. In main tab, removed myself from permissions list and made sure SYSTEM has full access (iirc, it already did)
    16. Refreshed, unable to view key anymore (that’s good), closed Regedit
    17. Opened Device Manager
    18. Uninstalled optical (CD/DVD) drives
    19. Rebooted
    20. Inserted a disc to test, observed that it loaded without suddenly turning into a hard-disk, opened the disc in Explorer successfully.

    It works correctly now (I can watch a DVD without having to rip it to the hard-drive or running the player in administrator mode, or I can install a game or program without having to open an admin command-prompt to install or even copy the whole disc to the HD).

    I guess my instincts were correct from the start. If I had the time—um, at the time—I would have rolled up my sleeves and dug into that inaccessible key like I usually do. Thanks to harrymc for insisting on the key being accessible and pushing me to copy it.

    (I’m still not sure what caused the problem in the first place. I do recall that there were other issues with the optical drives just before the key got deleted—Device Manager had kept marking them with an error/warning—and I recall trying various ways to forcibly uninstall the drives in an attempt to get Windows to detect and reinstall them correctly. It stands to reason that one of the forced uninstallations somehow managed to delete the key; it didn’t exactly improve the situation. On the bright side, the drives are no longer marked with warnings in Device Manager.)

  • Abhishek Jha

    I faced the same problem , what i did was:(Windows 7)

    • Ran Regedit and navigated to HKU\z\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

    Right clicked, then click new, then create a new key. Then rename it to Properties. In Properties create two new dwords

    • DeviceType Type:reg_dword Value:00000002
    • DeviceCharacteristics Type:reg_dword Value:00000100

    Then Uninstall the driver of cd/dvd from Device manager.

    Scan for New Hardware. Boom!! Problem Solved.


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  • Donotalo

    I've bought a movie DVD which can be run on DVD player. But Windows doesn't recognize the disc. My DVD writer attached with my PC is ok since it can read other DVDs and it supports almost all type of DVDs. If I try to open the DVD from explorer after a long time I can only see a desktop.ini file. I cannot get access to the DVD files from DVD Decrypter, MagicDisc or CDCheck. They all report that there is no disc in the DVD writer. But from Computer Management (Computer > Manage), if I select Storage > Disk Management from left panel, then after a long time, the DVD is shown, showing its capacity 4.67 GB and says that it is online. So certainly Windows can read the files but doesn't let me access! My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate.

    How can I copy the files from DVD writer? Thanks in advance.

    EDIT:

    It is a dual layer DVD. But my dvd writer can read dual layer DVDs I think. Model of the DVD writer: ASUS DRW-1608P3S. Also, there is a text that reads DVD 9 on the disc.

    EDIT 2:

    Here is the status from AnyDVD:

    Summary for drive K: (AnyDVD 6.6.0.7)  
ASUS DRW-1608P3S 1.24 06/05/24PIONEER  
Drive (Hardware) Region: 1

Media is a DVD.  
Booktype: dvd-rom (version 1), Layers: 1  
Total size: 2448000 sectors (4781 MBytes)

    However, when I try to copy the DVD using AnyDVD, it says "Drive K: is not ready." I tried both "Rip DVD to harddisk" and "Rip to image" options, and both says the drive isn't ready.


    • Related Answers
  • see an example

    Try to download Slysoft AnyDVD and install it. You will only need the 30 day trial to test this. Install it , Reboot, and then try accessing the DVD. Let me know how it goes

  • mike

    try VLC it is a open sorce player that will play ANY DVD FORMAT REGARDLESS OF PROTECTION. Windows media player sometimes have problem with burned or copyrighted dvds. Good LUck

  • Kaji

    Not too up on Windows 7, so I don't know specifically how it handles certain things, but is it possible that the drive is looking for one DVD region while the disc is another?

  • rodey

    The problem is probably related to copy protection mechanisms on the DVD. CPM's would prevent your computer from reading the disc and that would cause the software you mentioned to not be able to copy the files. As someone else mentioned, AnyDVD will disable the CPM's and allow you to use the DVD on your computer.