cdrw/dvd combo not working

Hey PC world you stink ! :rolleyes:

This is one of those times when you wish you could reach down the phone line & "touch somebody" ! :( :p

None of this is helping much though ...

I know you said your computer won't read any disk, but that's from windows ... there are other possibilities ....

First we need to find what the electronics inside are registering (this might just be a loose wire!) .... look at this ..http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm ... your machine should do similar, just after it goes beep, after you turn it on .... (it goes past real fast ! tip: press 'pause/break' to 'hold' it there) ....

What I want to know is what it finds as Primary master .. secondary slave (you might have up to four answers maybe only 1) .... it should find some that you can recognise as your hard drive & your cd.... if it only finds Hard drive ... then we have to open the box !....

hi
primary master says, maxtor 4d060h3-(pm)
primary slave says, (none)
secondary master says,samsung cdrw/dvd sm332b
secondary slave says,(none) :confused:

That's good....

You just told me that you have a hard drive "maxtor 4d060h3-(pm)" & a CD/DVD combo drive "samsung cdrw/dvd sm332b", & that they are plugged in correctly with seperate wires ...

Next I want to 'test' the drive without windows 'messing it up' :D

So for that we need some stuff ....

What operating system is this ? We want a thing called a 'boot' disk ... go get one from Bootdisk.com for windows 98 ... (these all have DOS CD support) ...

Double click on your downloaded file to copy to floppy ....

We then need to change the 'boot order' (which drive it starts from) in bios (machine settings) ... so...

Restart, after beep press 'delete' like mad ! (it might be another key - it'll tell you on the bit like above) ... you are now in bios .... everythings probably very blue ....;)

Usually the second entry down has the bit we want .... we want to find an entry which lets us change our 'boot' source ... we want a question that has answers like A:, C:, CDrom ... drive names! ... set that to "a:" first (floppy drive).... save your changes & re-start ....

Hopefully when you do it'll try to start from the floppy drive ...

You should end up at a very unhelpful "a:>" ... if so you are in dos.

We can now check the cd ... put a 'data' (not music cd) in, you should be able to type "d:" (where that's the cd drive letter) to change to that drive ... type "dir" ... if you get a big list of files, bingo ! windoze is broke, but your computer isn't !...

Try all that & let us know....:)

just a small point, if you are using a win98 boot diskette, it loads the utilities to a virtual drive called d: - the cdrom is likely to be on e:

;) ... oops!.... indeed 'E' .... :D

hi
i am using windows xp home edition
does it matter if i down load it from win 98 or should i download it from xp.
this is all very confusing :confused: :confused:

Quote:

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Originally posted by seanmick
hi
i am using windows xp home edition
does it matter if i down load it from win 98 or should i download it from xp.
this is all very confusing :confused: :confused:

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We want to use 98 (dos) instead of xp...

We are trying to use an 'older' operating system 98, here, but just the prompt based bit (DOS-Disk operating system), not all pretty pictures like xp or windows 98 ... a text based system ...

What we are doing is making a 'mini' operating system on the floppy, that is text based, no pictures ... the easiest one to use is 98, the files in the link do it all for you....

Try the instructions one at a time I think things will be clearer...

hi
witch one do i use
win 98 ome
win 98 custom no ramdrive
win 98 se ome
win 98 se custom no ramdrive

any of them are fine. if you choose the ones that say "custom no ram drive" then the letter you use to test the cd/dvd combo will be the same letter it was in windows (probably d: ) if you choose the others your cd/dvd combo will be one letter furthur up the alphabet then it was in windows, (most likely e: )

all those disks are essentially the same thing. so just pick on then post which one it is.

This one ok so its not the link that confus-ed got you, but it is my favourite link!

As to which of the boot disks, it doesnt really matter that much for what we are trying to do - but if you downloaded one with ramdrive - that would be a virtual d: drive and your cdrom would be on e: - if you download one without ramdrive, then the cdrom will be on d:

The only I have linked you to is with ramdrive...

hi
ok i downloaded win 98 ome and have put it on floppy
i restarted my pc pressin delete and got in to bios but not to sure what to do now i no u said it was the second 1 down but in what category
main advanced security power boot exit
:confused:

no need to go into bios, (unless you aren't set to boot from floppy first - but most pcs are by default) just toss the floppy in and restart the pc

Boot - you need to control which device does the booting.

For this experiment, you need it to boot from the floppy drive, known as A:

You normally set the first boot device by using the arrow keys or the page up page down keys You must then save the new configuration. Look on the screen how to save the new settings.

hi
its me again the computer wizz kid ( not):D
ok i put the floppy in and started the pc it gives the 3 options
start with cdrom support
start with out and help
so i started with support not sure if that was write or not
then a msg came up saying
drive c does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition.
drive may need to be partitiond run fdisk from the m5dos command promt, i have no idea what any of this means
surprise surprise i hear u say ;)

Quote:

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Originally posted by seanmick
hi
its me again the computer wizz kid ( not):D
ok i put the floppy in and started the pc it gives the 3 options
start with cdrom support
start with out and help
so i started with support not sure if that was write or not
then a msg came up saying
drive c does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition.
drive may need to be partitiond run fdisk from the m5dos command promt, i have no idea what any of this means
surprise surprise i hear u say ;)

---

yes starting with cdrom support is what you want to choose. the message about drive c is NOT concerning at all, it just means you have windows XP, windows 2000 or another OS and your hard drive is using NTFS which windows 98 boot disk can't read.

what you are looking for is for the boot disk to say whether or not a CDROM is attached to the system and assign it a drive letter.

I can't think of the exact text string or find a screen shot, but you could reboot the pc with the disk and toss a cd rom in the drive then from the a: prompt try both "dir d:" and "dir e:"