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General discussion

CD ROM

Feb 27, 2004 3:02AM PST

First of all the computer im writing about is a home
built older computer thats running a celeron 366
cpu,160mb of ram running windows me.My problem is i
cant get the cd rom to work.just out of the blue it
stoped working.If i go to device manager it's not
listed and it's not listed in my computer,but the
strange thing is it will work in dos and also if
i put a music cd in it will fire up and play the
cd.I have tryed everything i can think of but no
luck.I even replaced it with a new one i had.The
only thing i can think of doing now is reformating
the drive and reinstall windows.If anybody has any
ideas i sure would like to here them.
Thanks
dann

Discussion is locked

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Re:CD ROM
Feb 27, 2004 4:03AM PST

Is the new CDROM "new?"

Is the CDROM noted by the BIOS?

Can you tell the forum where the CDROM is connected, the channel, the jumpters and if the drive can eject and close?

Bob

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Re:Re:CD ROM
Mar 2, 2004 2:56AM PST

Yes the drive is new and it opens and closes and
will operate in dos mode.The jumper is set at master
and the and drive is connected to the cd-rom ide
plug.Remember the drive used to work and just stoped
working in windows.also it shows up in the bios.
Thanks
dann

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"drive is connected to the cd-rom ide plug" is a clue.
Mar 2, 2004 3:13AM PST

Some older Sound Blasters had an IDE channel on the card. Such may or may not work in windows, but I have seen easy support in DOS.

If so, move the drive to a normal IDE connection.

Take care in describing EXACTLY where its connected since it makes all the difference.

Bob

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Re: "drive is connected to the cd-rom ide plug" is a clue.
Sep 11, 2004 11:55AM PDT

ok this exact same thing happend to me. i have 2 cd roms that have always worked, nothing is plugged in wrong. i have changed the ide's to brand new ones. ive had the computer for years and for it to only stop working now without ever changing any cords, it just has nothing to do with the hardware.

this is the 3rd time its happend this month. the other 2 times, both drives magically reapeared, didn't even restart. This tiem its been a few weeks and they havnt come back and ive tryed many things.

All i can figure is its some system files conflicting. I have always used daemon tools and have a few extra drives. I thought that may be the conflict so i shut that down, but still no drives. I even unplugged my little flash usb drive, nothing. So now i just have 2 hard drives and a floppy.

just like the other guys said, everything works outside of windows, its listed in bios and dos. neither cd rom drive is listed in my computer, or device manager.

This was the fourth forum entry i found with someone having this problem, but no one seems to know the answer. Ive combed the microsoft knowledge base and cant find anything either.

I also only have about 1 gig out of 16 on my system drive i dont really think thats the cause, but its information. im on windows xp, but ive seen this problem in the forums on me, 2000, and 98 also.

I cant think of anything that has changed since before they stopped working accept maybe storage use.

hopefully they will just reapear again, but even so im sure it will just keep on happening.

please fix it!

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Best of luck,
Sep 11, 2004 12:11PM PDT

In your case, try motherboard drivers and latest BIOS.

Bob

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Re: Best of luck,
Sep 11, 2004 12:45PM PDT

well thank you for your input, but I am really convinced that it is somthing inside of windows so im not ready to try updating bios yet.

There are currently no upgrades for my board. its a FIC AN11.

from what ive seen fic is pretty lame so i wouldnt expect an update ever.

I also have uninstalled daemon tools completely and got all the current updates from microsoft for windows, but still no luck.

thank you again.
anyone else have any ideas?

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Jumping into another thread?
Sep 12, 2004 1:11AM PDT

It creates issues. Such as the original poster may have the old sound card conneceted CDROM drive.

Your story is too much like an owner that has slipped into denial a drive has failed. The test is simple...

Set the drive to be tested as MASTER on the 40 conductor cable on the second channel on its own. Set the BIOS to boot from the CDROM and then try a boot from your Linux, Windows CDs and if it can't boot, then try with another drive.

Such devices are high failure items and I see people spend months trying to save the failed drive.

The test tells me which way to go.

Bob

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Re: Jumping into another thread?
Sep 12, 2004 7:25AM PDT

well thank you, you just about hit the button. It's not that i was in denial, it jsut never occured to me that one of the cd roms being bad would make the other one not work. I just assumed they couldnt both go bad at the same time so that wasnt the issue.

The one that is now out of commision was the master so the other one was a slave to nothing.

It's too bad it was my burner that wasnt working though Sad

Thank you again Mr. Proffitt I feel silly posting about somthing so simple

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Forget about it.
Sep 12, 2004 7:49AM PDT

You took the clues I offered and found it. It's not silly and the only way we learn to work on the issues.

The IDE devices interfering with each other is well known to "tech" type people and now you know it too.

Best of luck,

Bob

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"Play It Again Sam"
Sep 14, 2004 1:10AM PDT

Dan:

A couple of observations about non working CD/VCDs not working that I have experienced. Bob Proffit cited the first one in his post above. It is that the dad burn things will work for a while and then out of the blue, they cease to read or write. The first thing is to suspect that the drive failed. I had to return two for replacement that work for three months, then would not spin up, they would follow all of the commands, except find a readable CD.

The second thing is that if you have two of them, then sometimes the arrangement of master and slave befuddles them. I have found that some drives will only work as master on the IDE string, and if you get two of these that only like to be master, they will not play nice together. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don,t. I feel that it is poorly written firmware and sometimes can be fixed with a firmware upgrade.

The third thing is the power supply. Below is a solution that I sent to a friend.

On the other subject, Your use of two CD players (DVD also). Remember when I told you that Gateway and Dell sized their power supplies to take care of the factory installed equipment. These power supplies were adequate to run what was on board plus a little over. Power supplies over time deteriorate and get weaker, not putting out enough wattage to run any added devices properly. A rated 300 watt power supply drops down to 275 quickly under max load and usually what happens is devices attached run erratically and the mother board experiences lockups. The only solution to this is remove devices or add a bigger power supply. That's the rub, Dell and Gateway use a dual fan power supply, so you have to get that type to put back in. This could explain why your machine ran perfectly for a year but now runs erratically.

Norm