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General discussion

E: drive not accessible

Jul 29, 2004 5:29AM PDT

I can't access my E: drive which is my DVD ROM drive. It powers up, lights go on, disk inserts, then won't access the drive with the usual "Drive not accessible" message. The drive shows up in My Computer and Explorer, I can also right click and use eject ok. It seems the disk is not being detected. It's started doing this just recently but it dosn't detect any disks at all. Do I need a new DVD drive? can I check the drive somehow? I tried re-installing Windows hoping it was a driver problem, but no joy and control panel says the drive is working ok...I'm stumped Sad Running Win98 SE

Discussion is locked

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Jul 29, 2004 6:44AM PDT

My killer test is this.

1. Use a CD lens cleaner.
2. Boot from a silver factory made CD.

No boot? Replace the CD drive.

It's a common sign of an aging drive for it to become finicky, read some disks and not others. It's not fun to watch an owner go into denial mode for a month or two while they search for drivers and firmware. But it happens.

Bob

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Jul 29, 2004 11:32PM PDT

Had the same problem in XL. Uninstalled the driver, rebooted, windows found new hardware and loaded the driver. Works fine now.
(Control panel, system, hardware, device manager, dvd/cd drives, right click to properties, driver, uninstall)

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Aug 5, 2004 8:58PM PDT

Hiya
Been a while but I know, I just installed a new MSI DVD ROM drive and can't access it it's showing up in My Computer as a removable disk, seems to think it a hard drive and wants to format it Confused If I click it hangs the whole PC. I'm dumbstruck...the DVD drive isn't even listed in Control Panel/Systems so I can't remove it. New Hardware Wizards finds nothing. Stuck! any ideas mate :-D still running Win 98 SE

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(NT) (NT) Did you do the CD boot test?
Aug 5, 2004 11:52PM PDT
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Re: (NT) Did you do the CD boot test?
Aug 6, 2004 11:54PM PDT

Sorry I don't know what you mean by boot from a silver factory CD...but the drive isn't playing any disks at all...it get worse...I now have an extra hard disk icon in the Disk Drive section in 'Device Manager' and it has foreign letters along-side like something like this |y|y|y|y I removed the old DVD drive entry in Device Manager before installing the new MSI DVD ROM...I have now taken out the new drive, installed OS over the top, put the drive back in and guess what...just the same...my life is turning to hell Grin I dunno what 2 do next

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That's a c lue.
Aug 7, 2004 12:20AM PDT

"I now have an extra hard disk icon in the Disk Drive section in 'Device Manager' and it has foreign letters along-side like something like this |y|y|y|y I"

The IDE communication was garbled and that's why the drive was mis-identified.

Let me bottom line this. People fall into a trap that "the drive can't have failed" and proceed to try any number of paths exceed to replace the drive. Months later they finally cave in, take it to some shop and pay dearly for the priviledge of replacing the drive.

CDROM drives are high failure items. In short, I use a CD Lens Cleaner (these are all over retail stores and if you haven't seen one, please go shopping) and then set the machine to boot from the CD and try that. You can learn about booting a CD from http://www.google.com by typing in...

HOW DO I BOOT MY CD?

Sorry, but you won't be the last to feel slighted by a failed CDROM (or CDRW/DVD) drive.

bob

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Re: That's a c lue.
Aug 7, 2004 9:09AM PDT

Sorry to drag this on but thats what I'm saying...this is a brand new 2 day old DVD drive so it's not a dead drive...I've just installed it because my existing drive stopped accessing all disks and I now think the problem is somewhere in the system not with the individual drive...I now have the problem with the machine recognising the DVD drive, and listing it wrongly as a hard disk...sometimes the machine won't even boot at all now...I'll try the web address you sent me first though, cheers Happy

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New can fail just like old.
Aug 7, 2004 9:28AM PDT

I can only ask you do the test. If not, tell why not.

As to placing the drive on an IDE channel with another device, the rules are not as clear as people want them to be.

I'd be repeating all that you can find on the web about jumpers, but here goes...

For 80 conductor cables, it's Cable Select. Yes, some may note you can still use Master/Slave, but guess what? It doesn't always work. GO WITH WHAT WORKS for you.

For 40 conductor cables, the first device is Master and the second is Slave. And to make it fun for us all, not all devices work together. This is why we test a device on it's own cable.

It's very hard for me to tell what tests you've done.

Bob

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Jul 30, 2004 2:46AM PDT

This has happen often when the software path is lost or corrupted.If you have a spare lie around CD unit or DVD player, re-istall that unit and let the PC detect it again. Then if you have a copy of Power DVD software, run it as a installed, once your drive is playing, remove unit and replace with original one, that way your HD will have the access path connected again. BUT....be sure you go to control panel,device Mgr,and select CD-rom first....and right click the CD rom properties and check to see if the drive is CHECKED off as a "D" or "E" drive.

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Aug 6, 2004 5:23AM PDT

Is this drive replacing another one? If so, you need to
goto My Computer-Properties-and remove the old drive. Then shutdown and add new drive. When you boot up it will
recognize the new drive. Until then, it can only see that
the old drive isn't there and keeps looking. Hope this helps. chuck

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Re: E: drive not accessible
Aug 7, 2004 9:26AM PDT

Did you try another IDE cable? Also try the other IDE port on your mother board. If you dont have any lying around take one from an old system.