CDROM and CDRW not working all of a sudden

Lateralus · February 12th, 2003, 09:18 AM

Hey guys,
I have Windows XP pro and my cdrom and cdrw have all of a sudden stopped working. They show up during bootup, but dont show up under my computer. In device manager they have the exclamation mark. I have uninstalled & reinstalled many times. Everytime I reinstall says there is a problem and contines to not show up.
My pc had been running smooth for over 8 months.
I have a "backup" hard drive that I set up a while back use incase of emergency, but its really small and dont have all my documents and such on it. My Burner and CDROM work great on that drive.
Any suggestions before I whipe the problem hard drive clean? I wish I didnt have to do that. I use format and start over for any little problem I had, but gotten tired of that.
Thanks, Jody

dunbar · February 12th, 2003, 09:44 AM

Have you installed any XP service packs recently, or added any software or hardware recently? Changed BIOS settings? Have you checked for motherboard drivers recently? mobo drivers need updating, but why the system is recently going whacko is not going to be caused by drivers, IMO, since they did not change.

Creatures · February 12th, 2003, 09:57 AM

could it be that you deleted the CD ROM in the windows explorer? happened to me once!

just uninstall the driver and reinstall the driver! <- that should help! (i hope)

Creatures

S.D.Willie · February 12th, 2003, 10:03 AM

this was a problem when i was using roxio ezcd creator. did this happen just after that? or maybe you dont have that at all.........just a thought.

there is a registry fix for that if you need it.

here is the thread i was talking about actually.

SD

nodnerb2 · February 12th, 2003, 10:21 AM

Hi,

Does

Quote:

I have a "backup" hard drive that I set up a while back use incase of emergency, but its really small and dont have all my documents and such on it. My Burner and CDROM work great on that drive.

mean that you have one of these Drives on the same cable as your HDD or what. I am a little confused about this

Are you saying that you can swap out your HDD for another one with the same OS loaded and configured for your PC and everything is hunky dory or what?

Also, What is the problem that shows up everytime you try to reinstall?

Cheers
Nodnerb2

Lateralus · February 12th, 2003, 11:17 PM

Thanksk for all the replys. I just got home and will start to work on this problem.
nodnerb2, both CDroms on are on the same IDE cable. As far as my emergency "backup" drive. Its just a drive I set up a while back to have around incase this my main one crashes. You know, My main drive dies- I pop the backup in and I come straight here to try and get support if needed. It is the same operating system and all.
I am constantly doing something with my computer- drivers and programs. Only thing I can think that I did recently was install a sblive value card, but unistalled it and set all bios back just the it was before. I'm thinking if the bios was the problem my back up drive still not work, not positve about that.

As far as my error. I go to device manager and see the exclamation mark. I unistall both of them or one at the time. Eitherway when I scan for new hardware it finds the drives but tell me a problem occured during the installation and it may not work properly- i continue to see the exclamation mark and drives dont work. Of course for obvious I cant search the cdrom to update drivers.
Right now I'm thinking I might just have to format and start over.
Its just that it will take me about 5 hours or more once I install all my drivers, programs, and tag all my music tracks for music match.

nodnerb2 · February 13th, 2003, 06:55 AM

Hi,

Thanks for that explanation.

Can you get your machine going with your backup HDD and look at the drives in device manager, copy the individual drivers to a Floppy or more than 1 if required and then when using your main drive compare the list of what you had with the "Backup" drive to what you have now and add in the missing one(s) or the one it has trouble loading when it's trying to install.

Another way of doing this would be to add the "Backup" drive to the same IDE Cabkle as your normal HDD but as a slave, make sure the BIOS is set to boot of the other one and then just copy the drivers off the "Backup" drive.

Cheers

Nodnerb2