To format or not to Format....

So I tried resizing my harddrive to do a dual boot ME/RedHat and failed miserably. I resized it back to normal but now I can't get either my CD-RW or my cdrom to be reconized by ME. I can't find the drivers and I have looked extensivly. That am I not really sre what I am looking for. I have none of the orginal paperwork that came with it. I have tried using the software that came with it to no prevail. Can anybody give me an idea before I format and re-install? I really don't want to because I will lose a lot of stuff that I don't really want to. Thanks in advance.


hjack

Have you looked in the Device Manager to see if the CDROM drives are listed and / or if they have exclamation points next to the entries? It seems like possibly you have some resource conflicts.

If they are not listed, you can search Google for the appropriate drivers and go into Control Panel and select Add New Hardware. Click on Add New Device --> Next --> No, I want to select... --> Next --> CDROM and then point it to the drivers you have downloaded.

If you do have a resource conflict in device manager you can try uninstalling or removing both devices from Device Manager and then reboot and see if "plug-n-pray" works it out by itself. If not on many systems you can go in the BIOS and reset the hardware resources. This will force the computer to reallocate all resources next time you boot and hopefully it will find the right combination for them to all work simultaneously like you had it before.

Lastly, I would try reinstalling ME over itself before I would resort to formatting and reinstalling from scratch. If you do have to reformat and reinstall as a last resort, you should back up the stuff you want first. But, if you go that route you should switch OS's altogether. Even by Windows standards ME sucks. You're better off with 98.

Hope that helps-

You mean to say that you didn't back up before resizing your HDD?

tonybradley WTF are you talking about?

If the CDROM and CDRW have exclaimations against them.. REmove the devices in the device manager (Right click the device and select Remove) Restart the computer .. The system "may" ask for your Win CD on restart.
If this isn't the symptom or this step didn't fix the problem Next..

IF the Drives are not found during the POST boot screen.. Remove the 40pin cable from one of the drives restart.. problem still there? yes reconnect that one and remove the plug from the other (this assumes that both drives are on the same IDE port, and therefor same cable). One of your CD drives may have developed a fault and this can cause both drives not to be recognised either by the Windows or the Bios (if the BIOS can't see the drives Win won't see them).

You may also have accidently managed to corrupt your BIOS.. Reset it..

You have Win Me (its not perfect), the CD atapi drivers are on the WIN CD.. the CD-RW will be able to read the cd with these same drivers.. you may need to re install the CDRW software ( I haven't had to do this yet) so you can burn cd's again..

See how you go..

Cheers

Und3ertak3r, what do you mean? I said the same thing you did.

I said:

Quote:

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If you do have a resource conflict in device manager you can try uninstalling or removing both devices from Device Manager and then reboot and see if "plug-n-pray" works it out by itself.

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and you said:

Quote:

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If the CDROM and CDRW have exclaimations against them.. REmove the devices in the device manager (Right click the device and select Remove) Restart the computer .. The system "may" ask for your Win CD on restart.

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Those are the same.

I said:

Quote:

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on many systems you can go in the BIOS and reset the hardware resources.

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and you said:

Quote:

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You may also have accidently managed to corrupt your BIOS.. Reset it.

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Those are close to the same, but I was suggesting resetting just the resource allocation and it sounds like you are suggesting resetting the entire BIOS.

It seems that your post was almost identical to mine in your suggestions except that I didn't mention anything about checking the cable or the drive itself being bad. I am genuinely curious- which part of my post do you think is offbase?

Um, I say, if you can, wipe out your harddrive and upgrade to XP or straight up red hat. I've had nothing but heartache with ME, and you'd be just as well off to be rid of it entirely.

It's a pain to do, and you loose a lot of stuff, but in the long run I think it'll probably make your life a lot easier.

But that's just my opinion.

So I have tried all the options and used the system recovery disk that came with it *gasp* they were there!! Then I rebooted........ gone. Whats could possily be the problem? I'm not sure what options I have left to do. I have checked bios and all good there. I pulled the bios battery and then replaced to see if that would help and no go. So I guess its time to re-install?


hjack

This *may* sound stupid, but... what exactly do you mean by "now I can't get either my CD-RW or my cdrom to be reconized by ME"? My first thought (the most simple explanation for the most simple problem) was that your CD-RW and CDROM drive-letters have been re-assigned. "Not recognized by ME" as in you click the CD-ROM-icon on your desktop and it says it can't find your CD-ROM?

If you are able to use your recovery disk (a CD-ROM I assume) then there's nothing wrong with your BIOS.
I don't know of that many CD-ROMs that require a separate Windows driver, so what brand is it?

What I mean is that the icons under my computer aren't there nor can I open either drive. Its not under device manager either. The CD-RW says HP CD-Writer Plus and the cd-rom says nothing.