[RESOLVED] cd rom drive disappearing trick?

[ROYGBIVCO]

my old cd rom drive was not working very well. i think due to too many discs with pb and j on them. purchased a new acer 40x drive. installed the hardware, but what used to be my e drive has totally disappeared from my computer. i receive a prompt that says " there is no cd-rom player attatched to this computer" i have a compaq presario 5030(pentium II 300 mhz) running windows 98. i figured it would recognize the new drive automatically. someone please help. thank you.

[cordon]

You could try going to control panel, opening Add new Hardware and letting it scan for new devices.
That should work. If it doesn't, use add new hardware and choose a device from list (It's a radio button on the screen after device detect has failed).

If all of that fails, look at the bootup screen. If it doesn't list an ATAPI CDROM on one of the IDE channels, either the drive is fried or your bios setup has gone odd.

[This message has been edited by cordon (edited April 09, 2000).]

[ROYGBIVCO]

thanks for your prompt reply cordon. i did try the add new hardware and the windows scan failed to detect the drive, i will try the choose a device option this evening when i get home. it is quite strange how the drive seems to have just disappeared. the icon for my e drive is even gone in the my computer window. is it possible that there is a problem with my config.sys or autoexec.bat files.

i will post another message this evening after trying your suggestions. thanks again for your reply.

[shawnMt]

Is it on the same channel as HDD? Is it set to master or slave? I've seen Compaqs that use cable select. You need to verify the hardware is set right first. THEN -

Boot to safe mode. Go into device manager and remove your old CDROM (and the new one if it's there.) Reboot to normal and see if 98 picks up the new drive.

[ROYGBIVCO]

i went to the device manager last night and the cd rom old or new just does not exist!! it is as if it just disappeared from the computer completely. one thing i did not say in my initial posting is that after i removed the old drive and prior to installing the new one, i reinstalled the old drive in order to check that my children had not left a disc in the drive. however, when i put it back in, i only installed the power cable, seeing as i only wanted to try and mechanically open the unit to inspect for a disc. it is during this power up of the computer that i believe the drive disappeared. perhaps, when there was no device on the cable designated for the cd rom, it just elimanated it from the system completely. if this is the case. i need to know where i go, and what to say to let the computer know that there is once again a cd rom drive in the neighborhood. :-) is it the config.sys or the autoexec.bat?? i appreciate everyone's time and input in solving this mystery with me.

[RGK01]

OK lets start from the beginning.

First, Windows is a plug and play OS, so when it starts It sends a signal to all devices and only loads the drivers when it gets a return signal. Apparently, it is not getting a return signal from your CDROM so it is not loading the drivers and device manager doesn't show a cdrom. You need to boot into safe mode, not normal mode to see what drivers are still installed into windows. To boot into SAFE MODE reboot your computer and press the F8 key right after post as windows 98 is starting to load. You will see a menu, select safe mode.

After you are booted into safe mode, go to device manager and remove/delete all cdrom devices listed. Shut down the computer. Now you want to remove the case and check the connection of you new CDROM, make sure the IDE ribbon cable has the red line on the side next to the power plug. Also check the jumper setting and make sure it is the same as the old drive was set (ie.. master/slave/Cable select) Once your sure all the settings are correct, boot into windows98 normal mode and the cdrom drive should appear.

If after doing the above, you still don't have a CDROM drive, then either the drive is bad (some new drives can be bad from the start) or the drive is not set up right.

[ROYGBIVCO]

rgk. thank you very much. it was the jumper setting on the back of the cd rom. the instructions that came with this new acer 40x drive were pretty lame. it made absolutely no mention to the jumper. thank you again. thanks to the others who took the time to reply as well. have a great day! :-)