CD Rom drives are gone??

[BLiZZaRD]

A while ago I was working on some harddrives and as I didn't have a working mother board then I replaced my current harddrives with those I was working on.

Now, everything is back to normal and everything works.. except that my cd-rw drive is gone, and a dvd-rw drive is listed in it's place.

there is no dvd drive on this computer, nor has there ever been. I am guessing it is something that got sent over from the other harddrives, but I can't see, without a good fdisk fix how to get my drives back and the ones listed that don't exist gone.

Ideas?

Win XP, if it matters :)

[Twey]

Go into the Device Manager and delete all the drivers for your CD/DVD drives, then reboot. This will cause Windows to redetect your drives and reinstall the drivers for them.Reboot - check Reinstall - check Reformat - let's hope this isn't necessary :p

[BLiZZaRD]

Should I delete just the drivers or the whole instance of the dvd roms? (Since I don't even have them I don't want them on the list at all :) )

[Twey]

They're the same thing in the device manager -- it doesn't actually show drives, just their drivers. Delete everything pertaining to the CD/DVD drives. Don't worry about breaking things, Windows will reinstall anything it needs.

[BLiZZaRD]

Thanks Twey, I will give it a go. I swear I did something similar to this before, but it must have been on another machine :confused:

I will let you know if it didn't work :)

[BLiZZaRD]

No, that didn't work... grrr

I did the uninstall, reboot and it found new hardware, installed the hardware.. and it installed the same fricking thing! A dvd rom drive with a drive letter o: WTF?

Anything else I can try? I would like to use my drive to burn some cd.s and it can't find it....

[tech_support]

The CD drive might be busted. (Same as 30% of my school's burners :p)

[BLiZZaRD]

Well, if I put in a bootable CD and reboot, it runs the CD that way, so the drive works... it should be drive E: but it is showing O: along with a completely different type of drive.

Sigh.. any other ideas, I will NOT format the hd!

[boxxertrumps]

Have you tried using DVDs with it? could be a mixup at the factory, and your comp it picking up on it.

[tech_support]

Put the Windows CD in. It'll say 'You have exisitng versions of Windows. Do you want to repair?' Click repair.

[BLiZZaRD]

No, it's not finding the port now. I either have a burnt out cable or a bad sector in the MB. I have spares of each though, although I don't want to use them on THIS computer! grrr

[thetestingsite]

I would have to say, try moving the drive to a different computer to see if it is the drive itself. If it isn't, then swap out the IDE cable going to the drive from the MB. If that still doesn't work, then it could be something on the MB.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: On a sepearte note, when I added another HD in my computer, it was named "J". So now I have A, C, D, E, and J (Where are all the other letters at, on vacation? :)

[BLiZZaRD]

You can change the drive letters, Windows "takes responsibility" for the first 8 or 9 I think. So the newest component then takes the "next available" even though the 5 before it aren't used yet.

I have verified the drive still works, I think it is the MB, I am just not wanting it to be the MB so I am kicking and screaming and praying it is the cabling.

[thetestingsite]

Well, did you check the IDE cables going to the drive? I have had those things go bad on me so many times (not just on my personal computers, but on some of our servers at work).

[BLiZZaRD]

No I was playing Tiger Woods Golf last night cause I had a long day at work and didn't want to mess with it. I will do that when I get home though :D

I will let you know.

[BLiZZaRD]

Well, wasn't that fancy?

2 IDE Cables split in two, 3 pins off my 989 micro processor snapped in half AND a bent pin in in the System Board end of the IDE cable connector.

Oh well, I had spares of all of them, back up and running. Once I got everything seated (carefully this time) I booted up, and then the fan went out.

Replaced the fan and all is working and smooth.

Of course now when I reboot the computer I get:



Alert! Previous Fan Failure!
F1 To Continue F2 To Enter Setup


And the nominal 2 beep BIOS alert from the MoBo.

Annoying I tell you.

[tech_support]

Heh. What brand was the motherboard?

[BLiZZaRD]

intel something or other. nothing real fancy.

I think I have to set the jumper to clear CMOS to rid the fan failure alert, but I am too lazy. err I mean busy..