Posted on 02/12/2005 1:50:43 PM PST by Howlin
I put a music CD that came with a book into my computer last night, played, and now my computer won't recognize either my CD or my CD writer.
I've tried everything; Norton, Restore, rebooting.
Does anybody have any suggestions about what I might try now?
LOL best post so far.
Funny you mention that. I just had a incident yesterday. I went to the update site a couple weeks ago to check for updates. I have mine turned off.
There were several, and one was a non critical updated device driver. I clicked everything and loaded them.Ipromtly forgot about this.
Days later my WiFi started dropping out and knocking me offline. I fussed with it for days, trying everything I could think of. I about gave up, but decided to roll the driver back forthe heck of it.
Problem solved.
Has this system every had a reformat and rebuild?
Or are you running what Dell supplied in the package....??
You guys aren't worth a damn when a someone's M$ installation is hosed. Where are you clowns to lend a helping hand.
Well,.... if after,......... this could account for our problem since you said you had difficulty with the update...
Well, I removed stuff like Music Match, but I have most of the rest; plus Service Pack 2 and all the updates.
Running Windows Firewall and all that.
Plus Norton and a crapload of other programs, like we all do. Camera stuff, printer stuff, ACDSee, Paint Shop Photo Album.
Oh, and Real Player (now now, don't go crazy)....and the usual stuff; Windows Media player.
But I swear, everything was fine until last night.
My house should be as "clean" as my computer is.
Well, this is a desperate situation. We've got to get Howlin's computer working!
Do you think it would be worth while to crack it open and at least try that?
When the system starts, or when I put a CD in, the green lights on all of them blink for a while, and then just stop, so somehing "is" happening.
maybe all you need to do is go online to Microsoft and try to do the updates again....look at them carefully and see if an update for CD hardware devices is mentioned.....
See my note just above....Got a Load of stuff on this baby...would be a work out to rebuild it....
Doesn't tell us much...if the Registry got hosed with some update last night.....
A idea just popped into my mind that we have not tried. Sometimes programs prevent writing new data to the registry.
Do a system restore in safe mode. Do you know how to do that? It will bypass all security features and allow a clean rewrite of the registry and the like. Pick a point that sets you back well before this started and do it in safe mode.
Okay, I tried that; delted them from Device Manager and went right to Add New Hardware.
It found both of them right off, then up comes the bubble next to the clock, saying "A problem occurred during installation; your device might not work properly."
It's got to be the drives or the cables.
When the system starts, or when I put a CD in, the green lights on all of them blink for a while, and then just stop, so somehing "is" happening.
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Your connectors might be halfway making contact. Are both CD players on the same "ribbon" that connects to the motherboard. If so, the connection to the motherboard might be iffy, and needed to unplugged and plugged back in a few times to rub off oxidation.
I realize you won't know unless you open up your computer.
I am not afraid to edit the Registry. I've done it before.
I don't see an option for safe mode.
This is a really dumb question, I know, but woudl Dell have sent me a motherboard schematic?
But it sure sounds like a connection problem.
Stay at it.We ain't done yet.
You need to reboot and hold a key down while it does, just a sec...........
Howlin, actually cd-rom's and cd-rw's don't require any drivers to work, only cd-rw's need software to burn cd's so I doubt it is a driver thing.
Have you tried rebooting the pc and look to see when the bios message displays the hardware configuration, (it happens very quickly) does it see the cd's? Your problem may be hardware related, though its very unlikely you would lose both cdrom and cdrw at the same time.
Is both cdrom and cdrw on the same ide controller, that is to say are they both using the same cable, one master and one slave?
So, to eliminate a lot of guessing and work, first see that the bios recognizes the cd's. If so then it is a windows problem and we can go from there.
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