Hi, can anyone help with this one please?

The CD ROM on my kids PC no longer appears under My Computer? It was working ok for several weeks but now I cannot even boot the PC with a floppy and then select D:

I followed the advice on another thread and looked at the "Unable to access CD-ROM after installing W98/ME" on the MS support site but it tells you to check thr IDE Dual Channel settings - which is when I noticed that the device was missing in Device Manger. So I tried to re-load my IDE device drivers, but there on a CD so oh dear....

Help!!!!!!!!

If the CD-ROM drive is connected to the secondary IDE channel, then make sure that channel is enabled in BIOS.

If it is, then make a new boot floppy either in Windows or by going to www.bootdisk.com

If you still cannot see the CD-ROM drive with the new boot floppy, then make sure that all of the CD-ROM drive's cables are securely connected, connect it to a different power lead, and try a different IDE cable.

If those do not work, then connect the drive to the primary IDE controller on the same cable as the HD.

If the drive works, then the secondary controller is probably bad.
You can work around this by installing a PCI IDE controller card.

If the drive does not work on the primary IDE channel, then the drive is probably bad.

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

If you have a bootdisk, the first thing to do would be to see if the CD shows up in DOS. You will need a bootdisk with CD support and you can download one at Bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com) if you don't already have one. You boot with the bootdisk in the floppy drive and enter the appropriate drive name at the A: prompt... it will usually be D: or E: depending on whether the bootdisk set up a RAM drive. Make sure there is a CD in the drive and type DIR. If it reads the drive, it means that you have a Windoze problem. If it doesn't, you probably have a hardware problem.

If it is a hardware problem, it is probably either that the drive has died or that there is a bad cable connection (or bad cable). You will need to open the computer and check the cable connections and/or replace the cable. Be very careful to plug the cable in correctly or it can really make things weird.... If it isn't the cable, it is probably a bad drive....

If your computer is under warranty still, it is probably a good idea to NOT open the case until you check with the computer manufacturer....

Edit: ski, you got here first while I was typing.....

Budfred,
Every once in a great while my thick fingers somehow seem to find the correct keys.

Thanks guys. I will try again when I get home and let you know how it goes!

Hi. Got this sorted by downloading a boot disk from www.bootdisks.com and reloading W98SE. CDROM & IDE device drivers are all ok again. Not sure what caused them to do a runner though? One other problem is that most of the boot disks fail when I extract them to floppy! Only one I ould get to work was the W98c alt one - and I did use a clean floppy.

Again, thanks for the help

Mark

You're welcome, and thanks for posting back with how you fixed things.

I agree with ski, thanks for letting us know and glad to hear it is working...