Missing device driver for external DVD drive

I have an external optical drive, ASUS SDRW-08U7M-U ZenDrive.

I’m trying to install a program using it but the drive just spins a few seconds & stops.

The drive does not appear in File Explorer.

The device shows up in Control Panel > Device Manager. Looking at Device Properties > General, it says “Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)“. I uninstalled the device but to no avail.

Updating the driver indicted I have the latest driver. The drive is plug & play and never needed a driver installed, and there is none listed on the ASUS website.

Windows Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Devices shows it under Other Devices as Portable Super MultiDrive and with a Driver error.

Any ideas how to get the driver working?
Thanks

please try.
disconnect the zen drive from the computer
then open device manager and uninstall the device
(if it is still shown) also on the top menu of the device manager is
'show hidden devices' the zen drive may also be visible there.

restart your computer

connect the zen drive to a different USB port
i believe the zen drive is USB type 2 (black coloured connector).

then see if Windows installs the required drivers/software for the zen drive.
best of luck Steve ..

I have a similar drive the ASUS SDRW-08U9M-U/BLK. My drive comes with both USB-A and USB-C cables.
Windows Settings: Bluetooth & Devices > Devices > Other devices > Portable Super Multi Drive
Device Manager: DVD/CD-ROM drives > ASUS SDRW-08U9M-U USB Device
Note in properties it says it is working properly.

Your drive seems to only have one cable a USB-A one. Here is a photo of my USB-A cable. If your cable is like mine then it has a USB-A Y-cable. That means you can plug it into two USB-A ports if you need more power. That is optional because I only need to plug into one USB-A port.



Is it possible you have a power problem? Have you tried to plug it into a different USB port? If you have a Y-cable can you plug it into two USB-A ports?

I have the USB-A Y-cable as mentioned & always use a pair of ports for power. The drive always worked with Windows 10.

I did a fresh install of Windows 11 on a new M.2 SSD about 2-3 weeks ago.

I've done the Uninstall > Restart several times using the front panel USB2 & USB 3 ports, and the rear panel USB2 ports. Nothing helps.

Device Manager even recognizes the drive by its model number. All the USB ports work when I plug in a USB thumb drive.

That said, the drive worked a couple weeks ago after I installed Windows 11 from a USB thumb drive. However I used the DVD drive to install a program from a CD disc. At that time I got an error message regarding a driver file named "pxhlpa64.sys" and it being incompatible with Windows 11. I did some searching & it appears that driver file probably was installed by Adobe when I installed Photoshop Elements from the disc. However PE did install correctly. To avoid future problems I then renamed the file instead of deleting it. But whether that file is renamed back to it's original name or not the external drive does not work now. Thought I'd mention that in case it is related.

Bottom line is all the USB ports work, but not with the ZenDrive. The computer recognizes the drive but says the driver does not work.

Any way to reinstall the Microsoft USB driver? Looks like it's from 2006. Can I just copy/paste it from my previous Windows 10 installation which I still have on its M.2 SSD?

Chuck99 said:

Any way to reinstall the Microsoft USB driver? Looks like it's from 2006. Can I just copy/paste it from my previous Windows 10 installation which I still have on its M.2 SSD?

Click to expand...

if you have the drivers for the zen drive on another disk you can plug that disk into a usb port and then use the device manager to search for the drivers on that disk. the drivers would then be available for the zen drive on your system. or transfer/copy the driver folder from that disk to a usb stick.

device manager
right click the zen drive

update drivers
in that window
browse computer
install drivers manually

then browse to the driver folder on that other disk or usb stick.

best of luck Steve ..

XxXxX said:

if you have the drivers for the zen drive on another disk you can plug that disk into a usb port and then use the device manager to search for the drivers on that disk. the drivers would then be available for the zen drive on your system. or transfer/copy the driver folder from that disk to a usb stick.

device manager
right click the zen drive

update drivers
in that window
browse computer
install drivers manually

then browse to the driver folder on that other disk or usb stick.

best of luck Steve ..

Click to expand...

There are no drivers for the ZenDrive. It's plug & play.

Chuck99 said:

There are no drivers for the ZenDrive. It's plug & play.

Click to expand...

Yes, there would be/has to be drivers, it's just that with p&p they're built into the OS. So the difficulties here might be that Windows doesn't have drivers to recognise this device

You could try Snappy Driver Installer ORIGIN
- download, unzip and save contents to a new folder
- run the 64bit exe
- download INDEXES ONLY
- install ONLY the missing drivers (if listed)

Looking around I went into Device Manager > Action > Add Drivers




Clicking on Next brought up this screen.


How do you fix this?

Chuck99 said:

How do you fix this?

Click to expand...

See my above post #7

idgat said:

See my above post #7

Click to expand...

Looks like we were both typing at the same time.

I did use the drive to install Photoshop Elements from a disc about a week ago. From what I've just read the cd-rom driver is included with Windows 11.

maybe try method 5

last method 6 says
The issues fixed by this method shouldn’t occur in Windows 10 1511 or later.

SIW2 said:

Your CD or DVD drive is not recognized by Windows or other programs - Microsoft Support

This article describes a problem with CD or DVD drives not work, or is missing, or not recognized after installing or uninstalling programs.

support.microsoft.com

maybe try method 5

last method 6 says
The issues fixed by this method shouldn’t occur in Windows 10 1511 or later.

Click to expand...

Thanks for mentioning that. I did read about the registry issue & saved some info about it. It was kind of a last resort & you gave me the push to try it.

I only had the LowerFilters & it contained the problematic driver file "pxhlpa64.sys" as mentioned in posting #4. Initially the drive didn't work using the front USB3 ports but did work using the rear USB3 ports. I was able to install some Canon camera software for my old camera. When the install finished it recommended restarting the PC, so I did. The screen went light blue but no error messages. Then went black & wanted to some diagnostics. No matter what I chose it kept rebooting to BIOS. Even if the PC was powered off. Eventually I used a Windows boot recovery USB thumb drive & got Windows back. I've rebooted since then & everything seems stable. Also did sfc /scannow & there were no errors.

However the software does not detect my camera. There never was an issue installing any software on Windows 10 but seems it's always something with Windows 11. Getting the camera working is tomorrows project.

But the DVD drive is working. Thanks.