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General discussion

Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading

by smitheejr Oct 11, 2004 2:57PM PDT

2 problems.

I have a toshiba laptop with windows 98. Just got it (off ebay) so I don't know it's history, but it worked fine up until today. Today I added software to it (a photo album program). Upon start up there is this message "too many parameters", then windows opens "normally" except there is nothing there...no icons, no anything, just a blank desktop. I tried opening in safe mode to delete the new software, but it's still an iconless desktop. Nothing to click. Any ideas?

A lessor problem. On another laptop (I am clearly a jinx) I got a laptop with no operating system. With a cd I installed Windows 95. It installed fine. But the internal CD drive stopped working, it doesn't read. I go into program manager and the drive is still there but reads as being empty. It's Windows 95 on an IBM. I'm wondering if it needs different drivers or something...or if there's a conflict somewhere. I'm just assuming the drive isn't broken because I was to install from it in the first place. Any ideas?

Any help appreciated.

Discussion is locked

6 Posts
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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 11, 2004 11:51PM PDT

ALL versions of windows do not fetch or supply drivers for motherboards, IDE channels if need be. Sorry if no one told you this. Now you know.

The CDROM should disappear as soon as the OS installs since... you didn't install a motherboare or ide driver and... microsoft doesn't do this for you.

Happy driver hunting.

Bob

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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by smitheejr Oct 13, 2004 12:01AM PDT

Would a higher version of windows help. I've tried downloading drivers but they're too big for a floppy and since the cd drive isn't working...

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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 13, 2004 12:27AM PDT

"Would a higher version of windows help. I've tried downloading drivers but they're too big for a floppy and since the cd drive isn't working..."

Rarely. It's a pretty simple issue in that Microsoft only supplies some bare minimum driver package which is enough to get the OS up so we can load more drivers.

The IDE or bus master drivers are usually in the 100K size so if you can't fit it on a diskette, then it's likely you have the wrong driver.

In parting, its too bad you didn't reveal the URL of what you tried to download to diskette since I could have seen if that's it or looked around the site a little.

This is where restore CDs are great...

bob

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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by smitheejr Oct 13, 2004 9:44AM PDT
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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 13, 2004 10:24AM PDT

If I follow the 380d story.... I end up at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;130179

You now get to work the issues that make DOS based owners scream. For instance, you can create problems by loading a realmode CDROM driver in CONFIG.SYS... You can find out what to do with the link above on how to get the IDE drivers to work in protected mode. What happens next is the CDROM will show up...

Bob

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Re: Laptop problems a blank desktop and cd drive not reading
by Tinkerman Oct 18, 2004 9:10AM PDT

Hi smitheejr,it could well be a drivers problem,if you have the Windows 95 CD try making a start-up floppy and rebooting your PC with it.The disk will provide CD drivers plus help /diagnostic files.If you still can't get your system running it may require a 'clean install',this involves the use of fdisk,also on the boot disk.I will be happy to give further info if required.

Regards Tinkerman.

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