Windows 8 DVD drive doesn't appear in File Explorer

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Roger Guitard

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I've recently installed a second DVD drive, and it's not appearing when I open File Explorer. I see it listed in Device Manager, Disk Management, when I click on My Computer, and the drive works fine. Everything is fine except for its absence from File Explorer. Any ideas as to how to add it to the list of drives?
 
Solution
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For me the trick to get the empty optical drive to show up in the File Explorer was:



Before that, I had done all the other 'show empty drive in File Explorer' tips that I had found on the web...

But it was not before I ticked of the 'Show all folders' in the File Explorer Options - View, that the empty optical drive showed up in the File Explorer navigation pane!

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Is there a drive letter assigned to the DVD drive? If not, go back to Disk Management and assign a drive letter there.
 
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It does has a drive letter assigned. Like I said, everything appears and functions properly, except for its absence from the list of drives in File Explorer.
 
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I've attached a screen capture of File Explorer, Device Manager and Disk Management. When booting up this morning, neither of my two optical drives are showing up in File Explorer, but both are working fine. Strange.
 
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Oh. You don't have to worry about it. It will show up if you have a disc on it. By default, they don't show up unless there's a disc loaded. It will not show up because there's no data to show. That's the computer's way of showing you if the DVD drive is empty or not. Did you notice, even your floppy drive A: is not showing because it is empty.
 
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Well, how do you like that. I hadn't ever noticed that before, I suppose because I wasn't really watching for it. Thanks for straightening that out. As for the A: drive, I have no idea what that's all about, I've never had a floppy drive on this computer.
 
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Hi

There is actually an option in the settings in Folder Options / View, to show or not show empty drives.
If you want to see the drive all the time, change the option HIde Empty Drives in the Computer Folder.

I have mine set to hide because my card reader makes it look like I have a half dozen hard drives.

Mike
 
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Does that apply to optical drives?
 
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Hi

I guess it doesn't anymore, I think that it used to, I remember when my DVD drives didn't show unless I had a disk in them, but I just checked and they do now.

I usually do have a disk in them so I didn't notice that they show all the time either way.

I used to show an "A" drive too, even though I didn't have a floppy drive but that doesn't happen anymore either.

You could probably remove it in Disk Manager.

Wow, remember 5.25" floppy disks, think how little data they could hold, I don't even remember any more but it was only like 1 mb.

What could you put on a disk that small now?

Mike
 
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How are your drives attached to your system? If they are SATA, which ports, since some SATA ports are not recommended for optical drives.

If they are PATA, do you have them on the same channel and one set to slave?

My DVD shows up in Explorer whether any media is inserted or not.

As far as the Floppy, you might check you bios to see if there is an option for enabling one. Or it might have something to do with the problem.

I did have a DVD once on a laptop that would no show up unless I opened the tray. But it did not work normally otherwise and needed a firmware update to make it work correctly.
 
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Both optical drives are SATA, and after installing the second one, the reason I was seeing my original drive and not the new one was that the original drive had a disc in it. I'm not bothered by this behaviour, but as far as a floppy drive showing, I don't have a clue. I disabled it in Device Manager, and all is well in my world again.
 
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For me the trick to get the empty optical drive to show up in the File Explorer was:



Before that, I had done all the other 'show empty drive in File Explorer' tips that I had found on the web...

But it was not before I ticked of the 'Show all folders' in the File Explorer Options - View, that the empty optical drive showed up in the File Explorer navigation pane!

 

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Solution
Hi

I just got a notice that this thread was active again, and came back to say that now running Windows 10 final version, my Optical Drives do not show if they don't have anything in them unless I uncheck that box that says Hide Empty Drives.

So that does still work.

I don't have Show all Folders checked.

If I do click Show all Folders then everything shows up!
That's true even if I have Hide Empty Drives selected.

Mike
 
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For me (after the latest major update) I had to uncheck "Hide Empty Drives" and check "Show all Folders" to get my optical drives to show up. I wish those Redmondites would make up their minds.
 
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