cd-rom disappeared!

Hello I am gonna go try and help a friend who's pc has "lost" the cd drive. He says it doesn't show in my computer. Says his virus scan is up to date and I don't know at this time if he was installing a program or what when it occured. He says he can start in safe mode but still no cd drive. I know he has not done anything inside the box so I assume there is no loose cable. I also do not know if bios is detecting it as I have not been in front of it yet. Just looking here for general points to try/consider. This is windows 98 now, can I fix him up by booting from a start disk and install win98 se?

First thing I would check is to see if its being seen in the Bios, If that checs ok, then to see if there are any conflicts in the Device Manager. If all of that checks out, make sure the drivers are being loaded in the Config.sys and autoexec.bat. One quick check would be to create a boot disk and boot to it with Cdrom support. The try and read some files that way,If you cant read the files from booting from the boot disk, then you have a hardware problem (most likely) Good luck

if its there in bios -go to control panel /system and see if its running in msdos compatability mode.

have a look around his desk for any drivers disks via etc, and ask him if hes been playing around with new drivers etc.

as for the autoexec.bat and config.sys "I" would suggest to REM any instances out of "device=xxxx.sys /D:mscd001 and MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd001 or similar , as win 9x will find its own cd-rom , and they "might" conflict and force compatability mode.

freddy

You made a mistake assuming that safe mode will offer a CDROM in win98. Because the standard drivers are not loaded, CDROM support is not available typically. This is not to say CDROM support in safe mode is impossible. See: <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2fsearch%2fviewDoc.aspx%3fdocID %3dKC.Q194846%26dialogID%3d5527915%26iterationID%3 d1%26sessionID%3danonymous%7c4890902" target="_blank">How to Make Your CD-ROM Drive Accessible in Safe Mode (Q194846)</a> . But you don’t really need to do this…I just wanted to make sure no one got the idea that I said it can’t be done, it is just not typically there.

It would be wise to check hardware functionality in the manner suggested above, using either a boot floppy with CDROM support, or if you can get the BIOS to boot from CDROM, any WinNT CD (NT4/2k/XP) is bootable, and can offer the same hardware diagnostic ability at startup. The idea is to bypass the installed OS, in an effort to determine if this is a hardware or software issue.

As stated, check device manager for errors. If there are any, read this article, and determine if it applies to your situation. If it does, follow the suggested solutions.
<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2fsearch%2fviewDoc.aspx%3fdocID %3dKC.Q151911%26dialogID%3d5527353%26iterationID%3 d1%26sessionID%3danonymous%7c4890408" target="_blank">MS-DOS Compatibility Mode Problems with PCI IDE Controllers (Q151911)</a>

Let us know what you find…

P.S. Those links above work. The MS web site has been screwy for a while tonight. If it comes back saying the article can't be found, refresh, or hit the link again.

correct Ya_know ,,,,,i should have pointed the fact safe mode = no cd-rom .

i have seen this to often , and years ago done this type of thing , by playing around with ide controllers,- "new" fangled drivers


freddy

ok ok---update
say one thing see another. I go there and of course he can't see his cd-rom because upon startup explorer fails and about 7 other errors! Hardware was all ok as I booted of boot disk and can access everything, but his OS was so trashed from kids d-loading every glitzy thing they see on the net, I have done a reformat and install now. All better now and one embarrassed teenager there! It was a bad install that brought everything down, not a virus at least!

Funny how people omit the important stuff, glad ya got it fixed.

[quote]Originally posted by cc_penguin:
<strong>Funny how people omit the important stuff, glad ya got it fixed.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It is like when someone tells you that their email isn't working, you get to their desk and find the PC in safe mode. "Was there anything you think you might have left out when you called the helpdesk?"

that's kinda funny, i was going to ask you if by some chance my 5 year old had been to your house lately!!! cause the same thing happened on his computer, we hid just about all the icons that we could so that he would not accidentally click on something and delete it, but then one day we go in there and the D drive is GONE!!! don't know what my hubby did to get it back, not sure if he even knew, but he finally got it back!

Very inventive and clever these five year olds,seems around there teens they seem to lose the plot.OOOPS! perhaps I should`nt have said that. :eek: