Strange extra CD Drive
 

My wife's computer has recently picked up an interesting quirk. When using explorer to look at the different drives/partitions on her computer, we see an extra CD-R drive which doesn't exist on her computer in addition to her DVD-RW drive. Occasionally, her DVD drive refuses to acknowledge the presence of a CD or DVD, and can this can only be gotten around by uninstalling and then reinstalling the driver for the device.

I can't find a driver for the ghost CD-R drive to uninstall, nor do I see it on the Device Manager. BIOS does not indicate its presence, either.

Any ideas?

My computer does that too. There is a dvd-ram drive that actually exists and there is a cd drive that only exists in my computer's deluded little mind.

A number of programs create virtual CD drives. Nero's a common culprit.

most of the virtual drives show up in the device manager. i'd bet the cd drive is dying, is it under warranty?

It turns out the extra drive's culprit was PowerISO. We'll see if the lack of disc recognition continues. I really don't remember if the thing is under warrantee, but it's only about 6 months old, so it might be.

I know Daemon tools does this exact same thing as well, I was looking like how the hell did I get a 3rd drive in here, turns out that was Daemon tools virtual drive.