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an old problem i never solved..a friend runs windows 98, while trying to make space she deleted her cd drive and the restore disk is on a cd..there is no restore point..i tried resetting bios and nothing happened..i don't know what to do and any suggestions would be helpful..i am good with software but weak in hardware though i could find my way around the insides of a box
How do you mean deleted her CD drive?
You cant really delete a piece of hardware.
What happens when you put a CD in?
Do any lights come on at boot up?
Does your BIOS recognise it at all?
Have you checked that it is still connected up inside?
How on earth did your friend delete a CD drive?
Unless the CD-ROM drive is dead, then most likely either the power plug or the IDE cable came out slightly.
I know sometimes working inside the box, just by moving stuff around, sometimes the IDE cable gets unplugged enough so the system doesn't see it.
Like what Nokia said....check the cables, make sure the BIOS recognizes it.
If the bios recognizes it she might have disabled it in the hardware profile or something. Try going to the device manager, (under system in control pannel I believe) and see if its there with a red 'x' through it or something. Then right click and hit enable. Very unlikely, but I've seen some weird ****.
DeafLamb
you can't really "delete" a cdrom drive.. it could be disabled from the hardware profile in the device manager but I doubt she went and did that.. I think perhaps the IDE cable going to it got disconnected or the drive died on it's own.. but a start would be to go into the control panel/system/device manager to check on it.. see if it's even listed. then if not, I'd open up the box and pop the cable off and put it back on.. if it's on it's own cable, try replacing the cable.. actually it could be that even if it shares the cable with the hard drive.. the cable could still be bad.. another thought.. grab a w98 bootdisk.. boot and select cdrom support.. see if it's detected.. i think it won't be.. only the oldest of cdroms needs any 3rd party driver for it to work in w98, so I wouldn't worry about it being a driver.. you might just buy a new cdrom drive.. they're only 30 bucks or so.. and plug the new drive in.. that sounds like the quickest troubleshooting solution.. If the exisiting drive shared the IDE cable with the hard drive.. make sure the jumper on the new drive is set for slave.. and if it was on a cable by itself then the drive should be set for master.
edit: damn i type slow.. there were no replies when i started typing.. hehe :D
i think its detected because it says... enter disk but the drive isn't listed and when i do enter a disk it doesn't detect it
i think it is more of a fact that the CDRom drive is not being detected mostly with Win98...
Many a times a restart resolves the problem...
I suggest that u remove the Cdrom drive from ur friends PC and try on some other PC.... If it is working fine of other PC.....
If it works fine on other PC...
Firstly Try checking the cable connections.....
Try reinstalling the windows....
Else
Ur friends Cdrom drive is dead... and needs to be replaced.....
Regards
If t
When you say the drive isnt listed are you talking, not listed in your device manager, BIOS or system information or all three?
If the drive opens to let you enter a disc it must have power so check your IDE/SCSI cable, which ever you have, to see that it is secured properly.
Also have you done a Virus check recently?
I shouldnt see a need to reinstall windows at this stage as anjali says........... for the obvious reason...... your CD ROM isnt working. There are other easier options to explore first!
It may be easier to just buy a new cd rom, they are only about £20-£30 in the uk, i dont reacon they would be much different in the states.
Providing it is a hardware fault not a configuration fault though, why spen £30 when just altering a setting could solve your problem?
Do check the cables - as has been said
Download Goddisk - boot disk with many many CD drivers (but I'm too lazy to look it up - google it, if you can't find it PM me and I'll stop being lazy)
Check the power connection for the the CD in the box - if it does light up on boot up, then stick a CD in and boot with a boot disk. Go to the D: drive (or whatever letter the CD drive is) and just do a DIR. If it reads it, then load all the drivers on Goddisk and you should be ok.
If it doesn't read it, you gotta check the hardware. Get an airduster, open it and clean inside. Then start again...
He has already said that he can open the drive (therfore he has power) but it wont read any cd's, so he wont be able to load any driver, unless its is a really really old cd rom he wont need any driver!
How will cleaning his box solve the problem dood?
This might be helpful, I use this one at work when I have OS failures and need to grab files, or when I need to recognize a CD drive that otherwise is unresponsive.
Download BFD, it is a modular bootdisk creator, here's the link
http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=bfd107.zip
When you extract the file, open a cmd window and put a disk in the floppy drive
After you do this type at the command line:
bfd cdrom
It will then start to write all the modules to the bootdisk, in order to make it bootable, and also to load a number of different drivers via MSCDEX in DOS at boot-time.
This bootdisk is VERY helpful, you can even create network bootdisks by typing in:
bfd msnet
Just a little two cents from me...this disk is the all purpose disk...I use it for just about anything windows or dos, its never failed me.
Even if you're just reading this thread, play around with this, the BFD.zip file is the automatic bootdisk creator, saves a lot of time from building a disk yourself. (We all get lazy sometimes)
Hope this helps!
thanks Discord - will check that out - sounds good
This sounds like windoze having another funny turn, in my opinion. Make sure auto-insert notification isn't disabled. I've not used old versions of windows in a few years, but I think the setting will be in device manager, in the CD-ROM drives' properties.
First thing to do is check the status of your CD ROM in the Device Manager.
Click Start > Control Panel > System
In the Device Manager, verify that the CD Rom exists. If it does not exist, there is a BIOS or Hardware issue that needs to be resolved.
If the CD Rom does exist, right click it, and left click on Properties. There will be a box that tells you the status of the device. It should tell you "This Device is Working Properly" or "This Device is not Working Properly".
If it is not working properly, close the window, right click on the device, and delete it from the Device Manager. It should be auto-detected again when you reboot.
If it is working properly, you may just need to create a shortcut to it, in order for Windows to see it again in Windows Explorer. To do this, open Windows Explorer, click File > New > Shortcut. In the pop-up box, type D:\ and click OK. This will create a shortcut to your CD ROM. To re-create it in your directory tree, put a CD in the tray, and double click the shortcut. Close the window that opens, delete the shortcut icon, and you're ready to go.
On Bootup, open your BIOS Configuration Utility, change your controller settings to auto-detect. This will ensure the BIOS tells Windows there is indeed a drive there.
If none of the above works, open the case, pull the ribbon cable out of the CD ROM, and push it back in. Pull the ribbon cable out of the controller or mainboard, and push it back in. Take care to ensure the red stripe on the cable is on the same side as pin #1, and ensure everything is aligned properly. Do not force anything, as the pins are easily bent.
If all else fails, go to eBay and buy a new CD ROM. They're cheap.
hi there,
you have received quite a valuable solution from all these guys. this problem is faced by us very often as we are in the hardware sales business. i could try to help u out with it first of all does it detect in the bios if it does then its working, 2nd have you received any floppy disk with the cdrom drive that u brought if yes go to control panel and select add remove hardware click "next" again click "next" when it ask "do u want windows to serch for new hardware" select "no" then click "next" in harware type select cdrom controller and click "next" then click have disk and give the path to your floopy drive and it will select the drivers and if this does not help or u dont have the floppy disk the one more suggestion if you have a dump copy of win98 in your harddisk reinstall it or not the u can use the suggestion given by anjali have a nice day man