The laptop that has a bad driver is an Acer TravelMate 2200

Support Information:
Device Type: CD / DVD
Manufacturer: Matsushita (Matshita Panasonic)
Model: Matshita UJDA760 DVD/CDRW
Interface: IDE
Operating System: Windows XP Home
Age of Device: Not specified
FCCID: MLT60N871

Type of drive: cd-rw, dvd (rewriter & dvd rom combo)
Location: internal
What recording software are you using?: NTI Cd Maker/version

Find it on DriverGuide (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=srch&sm=b&aax=&qa6=630&qa5=3&qa7=1500&dp=3&qm0=Matshita+UJDA760+DVD%2FCDRW&jmd=and&fzz=d) | Find it with Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Matsushita+%28Matshita+Panasonic%29+CD+%2F+DVD++ Matshita+UJDA760+DVD%2FCDRW+Windows+XP+Home+MLT60N 871) | Research manufacturer Matsushita (Matshita Panasonic) (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=getinfo&companyid=630)

Optical drives never require a driver when used in any Windows os from Win95 up. Windows XP provides native support that allows this drive to read a data or music disk and to burn a cd-r disk. No support for playing dvd disks. For that task, compatible recording software is required. It would help if you state what the problem is.

If problem is non-detection by the os, read on....

Simple solution:

Situation
There is a yellow exclamation mark for CD/DVD drives in Device Manager. The device status in the properties of the driver might indicate an error code, for example 32, 37, or 39.

Solution

To solve the issue, you have to edit the Windows Registry:
Click Start, then Run, type REGEDT32 and click OK.
Locate and then remove the following registry values:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlCl ***{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}LowerFilters

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlCl ***{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}UpperFilters

http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr/topic_02125/topic_02125.gif

Close Registry Editor.
Reboot the system for the changes to take effect.

Note: Some programs are unable to detect the CD/DVD drive after these steps. To solve this, simply re-install the program in question, eg: usually your recording software. Also, in few instances the order in which the programs are (re-)installed can make a difference.

And here's another method that will do this automatically for you if you're afraid to edit the registry manually.

http://forums.driverguide.com/showthread.php?t=22131
(automatic fix, post #7, download file: CdGone.zip)

Many thanks for the clear instructions here. Though the instructions were posted a few years ago, I found them very helpful for my problem and cannot thank the author enough. I could not "see" my Rom Drive but modifying the registry as explained has now restored my laptop to normal working.