Modification measures regarding optical drive issues
After installing the virtual optical drive, one more optical drive will appear in "My Computer". Some users don’t like others to use their computer’s optical drive to read the disk, which is even worse now. We can delete the virtual optical drive icon by modifying the registry, and then block the original physical optical drive in a simple way. In this way, your optical drive will not be easily used by others. In addition, installing a virtual optical drive may also cause some trouble to friends who like to play CD games. Let’s take a look at how to solve some problems that may be caused by virtual optical drives.
●Delete the virtual optical drive letter in "My Computer":
Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI subkey branch, and there will be two subkeys below, corresponding to the physical optical drive and the virtual optical drive subkey. Now delete all the subkeys under this branch and restart the computer. The physical optical drive will be rediscovered. The system will fill in the items under this subkey by itself, and the virtual optical drive letter will disappear.
●Usage of optical drives:
In addition to the hidden drive letter method we mentioned in the system appearance registry modification, if your optical drive is installed on the secondary IDE channel, you can also block the optical drive in right-click [My Computer]|[Properties]|[Hardware]|[Device Manager], open the plus sign before IDE ATA/ATAPI, you can see the main IDE channel and the secondary IDE channel, select the secondary IDE channel, right-click, select "Disable", and click OK. A red fork will appear on this option. At this time, you can see that the CD Rom device that originally appeared at the top is now gone, and the optical drive is no longer visible in "My Computer". And as long as you get here, re-enable the secondary IDE channel, right-click and select, you can immediately see and use the optical drive again.
●The automatic operation function of the optical drive is prohibited:
Maybe your optical drive is not used often. If you automatically play the above content every time you insert the disc, it may cause inconvenience. You can disable this feature by modifying the registry. Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom subkey branch, change the data of the key value item "Autorun" in the right window from the original 1 to 0, and restart takes effect.
●The problem that the virtual optical drive cannot be recognized after installing the virtual optical drive:
In order to save the trouble of inserting CDs every time when playing games, some friends installed a virtual optical drive, but the problem arises: when clicking to execute "Create VCD file", the system prompts "No physical drive installed on your machine", or "Build VCD needs at least one physical CD drive", that is, the physical optical drive is not recognized. The possible situation that causes this problem is that the allowed drive letters in the system are full.
Open "Device Manager" and check the CD Rom configuration. I found that only one optical drive was identified, that is, the physical optical drive, and the assigned drive letter is "G". Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup subkey branch in the registry editor, check the "Lastdrive" key value under the branch, it turns out to "G", change it to "Z", and restart the computer. The physical optical drive cannot be used normally because the virtual optical drive seizes the "G" drive letter, causing a conflict in the physical optical drive letter. Similarly, it is also applicable to the situation where there are many disk partitions in the system and multiple physical optical drives are installed.
●Scenarios when the CD game cannot run after installing the virtual optical drive:
After installing the virtual optical drive, the disk letter of the physical optical drive will automatically move backwards. In this way, the originally installed CD version of the game cannot run normally. The system will prompt "Confirm the CD is in the optical drive" or "Please insert the CD" and other information. Of course, you can uninstall the game and reinstall it. However, a simpler method is to modify the registry, open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software subkey branch, find the subkey of the game name, and expand it layer by layer. There are usually key-value items that indicate the installation of the optical drive letter, and modify its value to the current physical drive letter.