I had my Windows 2000 systems running for a few weeks with a CDROM drive perfectly visible. One day I noticed that drive D is gone from My Computer. I went to Add/Remove Hardware and I learned that my CDROM device failed to start (code 10).

I went through a number of troubleshooting steps including physically disconnecting the CDROM drive from the ATA cable and connecting it again. The system recognizes new hardware, says that it installed the proper drivers, and suggests rebooting the computer so that the driver installation takes effect. After rebooting the drive becomes invisible for the operating system. Again, the device manager responds with code 10 when I try to investigate the situation.

I also ran Windows 2000 system repair session from a Windows 2000 Professional installation CDROM disk. My machine has no problem with booting off the Windows 2000 Professional installation CDROM disk in the very CDROM drive that delivers the problem I described above. I chose the repair option rather than full re-installation of the operating system. The repair process went just fine off the CDROM drive at question and then, after the final reboot, I ended up with the same problem.

I tried several CDROM drive models attaching them to the primary IDE port as a slave and to the secondary IDE port as a master device – no difference.

I ran out of ideas on what to do next. I will probably fully reinstall the operating system, which is rather painful taking into account lots of applications I will have to reinstall after that.

Any ideas?

Joe Sufleta

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