Where did they go?

[qei]

My sister called (long distance of course) I talked her through installing a new stick of memory in her system. (I ordered the memory for her). The memory install went fine. She called me back the next day to say that she has lost both CDROM drives. I had her check the cabling to make sure she had not knocked something loose. The cables all check out fine. The drives are not in the device manager and there are no icons in my computer. She tried "add new hardware". The system is running Win ME. I know that I have seen systems that have "lost" the CDROM but I do not remember what was the cause. I am not much good at the "long distance--over the phone" tech advice. Thought maybe somebody out there could help me help her.
Also, another question, does anybody know of a good site to purchase used computers?
Once again, thanks for the help

[TripleRLtd]

Geez, your in Idaho, just give teh Doc a call.
It must be the cables coming loose.
And I mean at the MB interface not the back of the cd's.
Walk her through it again.
Let's not make this more complicated than it sems to be.
BTW
She didn't go into BIOS did she?

[qei]

I had her check the cables on BOTH ends. No, she did not go into the BIOS. I really don't think that it has anything to do with the memory install but I don't know what else to have her check.

[Ya_know]

Well, first determine if it's a windows thing, or a hardware thing. We know that they don't show up in windows, do they show up during bootup? Some BIOS's display the found devices at startup, or in the CMOS menu. Check there. As well, you can try booting from a bootable CDROM. So if it is seen by the motherboard, and boots to the CDROM, you know right away it's a windows problem.

And you are sure she has the pin one lined up correctly on the MoBo and CDROMs? And I doubt she changed jumper settings…right?

[Social Enemy]

Lately I've been noticing one bad drive holding down the other one and not letting it be detected. You may want to try loading with one drive connected at a time and see if one of them gets detected.

[Diver01]

I had an issue a few months ago after installing an external USB burner on a laptop. After I rebooted, both CDROMS had red x's on them. The only way I was able to fix the error was as follows: (This fix was on a Windows 2000 machine. I have not tried it on any other OS.)

Back up the Registry first.....
Drill down to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}


remove Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values if they both exist. Reboot.

The only problem with removing both Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values is that they might contain references to drivers that you want to keep. You may need to reinstall some software.....

I copied this fix from this thread...

http://www.dvdrbase.com/archive/index.php/t-19114

[qei]

Update-- She just called and said the system will ONLY come up in "Safe Mode"--the start screen goes by too quickly to see if it is detecting the CD drives. I talked her into the CMOS setup screen and she said that the Primary HDD was the only one that showed anything all the rest said NONE. I tried to talk her through auto detect but it was not working--I mean, the "over the telephone" was not working. Tried to tell her she should just throw it in the car and bring it to me but............

[Ya_know]

Oh!!! Well if it's in safe mode, and no CDROMS are there, that's normal for windows 95, 98, and ME (well not too sure about ME). There is no natural support for CDROMS in safe mode (although with some effort it is possible). However, what you need to focus on is why it's going into safe mode...

Start by having her remove the new memory, and force it into normal mode...

BTW, the first rule of phone support that you in turn proxy to a tech forum, get and give all of the correct information first…Tell us what OS!!!

[DocPC]

Oh!!! Well if it's in safe mode, and no CDROMS are there, that's normal for windows 95, 98, and ME (well not too sure about ME). There is no natural support for CDROMS in safe mode (although with some effort it is possible). However, what you need to focus on is why it's going into safe mode...

Start by having her remove the new memory, and force it into normal mode...

BTW, the first rule of phone support that you in turn proxy to a tech forum, get and give all of the correct information first…Tell us what OS!!!

Read the first post again.......WINME!

[NooNoo]

The rest said NONE

Talk her through setting them to auto

Adding ram may have caused a cmos reset.

[Ya_know]

Read the first post again.......WINME!

...

[qei]

The computer was NOT in safe mode when all this started. It has only just started doing that. Tried to talk her through the bios changes to AUTO from NONE but for some reason it is not working. It is Micron PC.com Bios Version and apparently the controls are not the usual. I am going to try to research this bios version and see if I can figure out how to change the values.
Thanks for all the suggestions--keep 'em coming.
(Thanks for the support Doc )

[qei]

Update--Just talked to my sis, she called a local tech. Apparently the motherboard is flaking out. Seems to have a problem with both IDE controllers. He said she could have caused it when she inserted the memory because the board is not supported very well, but, maybe not, could just be one of those things. Anyway, he is going to upgrade the system for her and even quoted a very fair price!!
All's well that ends well.... (we'll hope this ends well!)
Thanks again for the help.

[Tekboy]

Hmmmmm, every Micron I have ever dealt with had a mainboard that was supported exceptionally well. Ever try to remove one? Some of the ones with Pentium 2 processors have like 15 standoffs/screws on them.

I think I would determine if I could boot to a CD before trashing it.

However, from an end-user standpoint, an excuse to upgrade can be a GOOD thing <grin>.