Win98 doesn't recognize CDROM

**let98007** · July 6th, 2004, 11:02 PM

I have a Dell Dimension XPS T600Mhz running Windows 98SE. The original CD ROM drive quit working recently so I installed a new ASUS CD S520/A4. The drive is recognized as the machine boots (it initializes and the light comes on anyway) and the device manager says it is present and working properly but there is no drive letter assigned. The old CD ROM was E:\. This machine has an Iomega Zip 100 that used to be assigned as D:\ that also has no no drive letter at the moment. When I do a new hardware search in Windows, neither of these devices show up. I don't really need the Zip but it's sure hard to do much without a CD ROM.

I was assured that the new CDROM would automatically be recognized by Windows ('course they didn't say I'd be able to USE it! <g>) I've searched for device drivers but can't find any for 98SE. I've looked at several web sites with suggestions and none of these have helped. The most promising suggestion was to boot from a Windows floppy which would cause Windows to recognize the hardware and tell me what drive letter was assigned. Using this info, I could reinstall Windows. However, I can't even create the floppy because the process requires me to insert the Win98SE CD!

Any ideas what I could try next would be most appreciated. Thanks!

**Platypus** · July 6th, 2004, 11:46 PM

Welcome to WinDrivers, let98007.

There is no driver needed for Windows for a standard ATAPI CD-ROM, its own internal driver does the job.

Your problem is commonly caused by having an IDE Zip drive ID'd in the BIOS, many BIOS do this incorrectly and neither the Zip nor the CD-ROM work.

Of course, this will not apply if the Zip is SCSI.

Try going into the BIOS setup (commonly by pressing Del during boot-up, but maybe something else with Dell) and see if the Zip drive appears in the IDE drive listing.

If so, manually change the setting for that IDE channel to "None" or equivalent setting. The Iomega driver will find the drive regardless of this setting.

Re-boot and see if the CD-ROM is found.

**NooNoo** · July 7th, 2004, 07:01 AM

Also if you replaced the cdrom, you should check the jumpers are set correctly.

You can download a bootdiskette from www.bootdisk.com and most 98se cds will boot from cdrom, so you could try setting your bios to have the cdrom as the first boot device.

**let98007** · July 7th, 2004, 03:25 PM

Thank you both for your help and input. NooNoo, you were right about the jumper settings. Apparently many of the proprietary machines such as Dell prefer the jumpers in the "cable select" position rather than the "slave" position (the default) because of the way the data cable is designed. Correcting this allowed Windows to "see" the CD ROM and the SCSI Zip drive too.

I'm still playing "catch up" from the damage done in ridding this machine of a piece of spyware that was allowed to infest it last winter. We were away for 6 months and the house-sitter had use of the machine. During that time, the annual update on both the virus software and the firewall expired and the rest, as they say, is history... Unfortunately, I was beginning to think the machine was history too!

Thanks again for your help.