How do I audit CD/DVD tray opening events in Windows 7?

Since installing Windows 7, the entire office has experienced random CD tray openings, sometimes while we are in the office, sometimes not.

On my PC, I have two disc-reading devices, but only the top one ever slides open. I have found nothing in the event logs to that looks appropriate, even going to them right after I saw my own tray slide open all by itself.

Although it's not hurting anything (that I can tell), I'd like to know what is going on. To that end, are there any useful ways to audit these events?

MetaHyperBolic

Posted 2010-05-25T21:22:30.357

Reputation: 31

Have you run a virus/malware scan on any of the affected machines? It could be some malicious software - unlikely I know, but it would eliminate it as a possibility. – ChrisF – 2010-05-25T21:26:00.693

Oh, yeah, scanned away. We have Forefront, etc. There's a zillion scanners out there, though, with overlapping areas of expertise. – MetaHyperBolic – 2010-05-25T21:49:30.950

Answers

Not sure that you can audit this event w/o some amount of programming.

But, try this: Leave a CD/DVD (preferably non-blank and a CD/DVD known to "work") in the drive and see if it still ejects automatically.

If it still ejects, then there is probably some program doing it (which will need a small util written to figure out which program).

If the tray does not eject after putting a CD/DVD in it, then there could be some reason that the drive is being accessed most probably by some software (even Windows itself) in order to complete a unfinished setup. (or maybe you didn't install,say,a feature in MS Word, and when that feature is used, the Word Setup program tries to find it on the setup DVD; something along those lines).

Also, note that if the drive is empty, click on the drive in Explorer and it will eject the tray. So that's my reasoning on where to start looking for the cause.

Zabba

Posted 2010-05-25T21:22:30.357

Reputation: 789