:rolleyes: I have no idea what happened, but I've tried everything I could find in threads and search engines and NOTHING has worked. My CD ROM drives are BOTH gone, they are TWO SEPARATE DRIVES, altogether, so you'd think if it were a bad drive one would still work? One is the DVD ROM DRIVE AND THE OTHER IS THE RW DRIVE. They were listed as E and F drives...now all I have is the A drive, C drive, and D drive (system save). The E and F are gone from My Computer, they are gone from the device manager, there is not even a CD/DVD ROM listing under device manager. I tried to reinstall the driver from my D drive, system save, and it acts like it's going to open, then poof, the install disappears. (Any ideas on why this won't open? Corrupt file? Is there something preventing it from opening?) When I restart my pc I get a message that says something like ATAPI IDE CD ROM V 1.23B driver not found. I can't do a total system recovery, because...no CD ROM drive! I tried a REGEDIT program off the net, and nothing. I also did a total system restore that I had from my June backup when the system was working properly, all to no avail. I also went to Trend and ran Housecall, no virus was found (for once I was hoping there was! At least I'd know what the problem was.) The CD ROM drive runs. The door opens, I can insert a disk and hear it spinning it's little heart out, fruitlessly. Even though I knew the drive was actually GETTING POWER and SPINNING, I took the tower apart, totally removed the drive from the computer, cleaned everthing good, and reinstalled it. I still hear it spinning it's little heart out, fruitlessly...nothing. Everything else on the pc works good. I am running Windows 98SE. The pc is a Compaq 5834. It's an older pc but it has been such a good pc I figured I'll run it till it drops, as I only really use it for pleasure. It's been a while since I put in a CD ROM, as I really don't use them all that much, so I cannot tell you what happened when it disappeared, since I'm not sure when it went away. I don't know if it will help or not but the info on the dvd drive says: DVD ROM DRIVE UNIT, PIONEER CORPORATION, CODE DVD-114MC. I'm totally out of ideas here. I've tried to give you all the detailed information I can, but if you need more info, I'll be glad to supply anything I know. Might I say, my pc experience level is probably a low level intermediate. I will do my best to understand, but please go easy on me with terminology and skill. Please, please, please, someone help me. I want to do this on my own. After spending about 12 hours trying to fix this thing yesterday, it's become "personal". Thank you, everyone, for your time.

Sincerely,
Lisa

PS: ALL HELP APPRECIATED, EVEN IF IT DOESN'T WORK, I WILL MAKE A NOTE TO SELF FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

Hi Lisa,
Check in Device Manager under Harddisk controllers. You should find 3 controllers there. The pci ide, primary and secondary. If not, disconnect the DVD-ROM and try again. If that brings the controller back, your drive is dead.

You may need to go into setup (or BIOS) to make sure the ide ports are enabled and set to automatic.

But my guess is the dvd-rom has passed away... :( Any replacement will do fine, it does not need to be a ComPaq or a Pioneer model. You could easily put in a dvd-rw to make copies of dvd's or data and the likes.

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

Have you tried a new ribbon cable for those optical drives? Inexpensive and always a suspect when stuff like this happens.

Ok, I brought up the device manager, it is showing:

-Intel 82801AB Bus Master IDE Controller
-Primary IDE Controller (dual fifo)
-Secondary IDE Controller (dual fifo)

No yellow ! or ? in the device manager.

Lisa

BIOS shows everything enabled. :rolleyes:

Without removing cds from case, is there anyway of making the CD Drives visible? DOS? Settings? Registry?

I don't know if you could help me. Here's my major problem.
I no longer have the use of my 2 C.D.-ROM's. CD drives are invisible.

In - My Computer - I see A:, C:, and D: (extra memory.)
The CD-ROM's were listed as E; and F:. Now nothing.

In Control Panel - System Properties - Device Manager - + CD-ROM --
Nec CD-ROM Drive:28D and Yamaha CRW2200E are showing.

Each one - Properties states -- Hardware Version: Not Available. Device Status: This device is working properly. There are no letters in the drive letter. (I can not assign - click - nothing is there.)
I did the update driver. Nothing happened.
Pressed refreshed - Nothing Happened.

Lights on CD player -- NEC blinking orange checks for the presence and Yamaha solid orange which means Ready - no disc.

In MSCONFIG-- General - I have Selective startup -- Process Config.sys., Process Autoexec.bat, System.ini, Wini.ini -- Checked.

Ran Virus Check -- I had 3 viruses. I could not save them in a folder. Needed to delete them.

Ran Scan Disk -- No errors. Everything fine.

Don't know if I have to run DOS (Windows 98se) and find the CD-Roms there. Or what?
Can not re-install Windows since the CD is not working....

ccruise - you are new here and welcome but please don't "piggy back" another post since this tends to confuse what often turns out to be a different problem.

It appears that no-one has checked whether or not it is possible to boot to a bootable CD. The BIOS setup should first be checked to see that the boot order is set to select booting the CD before the HDD.

Just because windows can't "see" the CD doesnt mean that DOS (with CDROM support) cant see it or that the computer's bios cannot boot up a bootable CD.

Suggest trying both of the Optical Drives (but each one attached on its own) in case one is bad and thereby affecting the other drive.

Paul ~
Sorry I added my problem to another post. It seemed that if I was having the same problem, I didn't want to start another. Being redundant.... Again, sorry.

I am nowhere close in being a PC pro tech and haven't the foggiest Idea on what you are saying. I will figure out what you suggesting and try it...
Thanks for responding.

No problem ccruise - if the problem is the same then watching should be all that's needed; its just from past experience that one can end not knowing who is talking to who.

When I boot up in safe mode, cd rom shows up under device manager and there are four listings under it...does this help?? Now what???

Perplexed,
Lisa

diylisa - just an aside for starters - but you can edit your own posts for an hour after they are posted.

Which OS are you using please?

Devices that show up in Safe Mode and not Normal mode are known as Ghost Devices. The usual advice is to delete them from Device Manager in Safe Mode and Reboot when the new hardware wizard will normally reinstall them as if coming across that hardware for the first time.

Yes, I did know I could edit my own posts for an hour, thanks! But if you note the times on each of my posts, there was over an hour, thus, like my cd rom drives, the edit button had disappeared by the time I got back. lol...Sorry I know I have so many different ones, I was in and out of this site all day, hoping I could catch an answer. In my first post I did mention the OS. 98SE. I tried to give as much detail as I have available. Everytime I came across something that someone might find helpful on here, I added it. I try to be detail oriented when dealing with matters such as these, and I want anyone helping me to have as many details as I can supply.

Funny thing is, I did delete the devices from safe mode yesterday, as well...but when I rebooted...it did not detect them...so I put them back with the backup until I know what else to do. This is so frustrating. Looks like I've come upon one that is quite the stumper...such is the story of my life, nothing can ever be easy. lol. But, I'm hopeful someone on here can help me...I've heard many wonderful things about this site from friends, so it's come very highly recommended.

I notice you correct new users like myself and ccruise, are you the post patrol??? or the "post" guard...hahaha. Thank you for your input...still no resolution.

God bless,

Lisa

When recently one of my CD-drive disappeared from Device Manager and Windows Explorer, it was the IDE cable that had come disconnected from the drive.
Make sure all your drives are set to "Auto" detect in the BIOS setup and at Startup, look on screen [hit "Esc" to get rid of any splash-screen], to see if the CD-drives are being detected.
The LED on the drives should be blinking if they are in communication with the motherboard, and glowing unblinkingly if not.
During detection of the drives, there may be a [20 sec?] delay whilst the BIOS attempts to detect the [non-connected] CD-drives, [and then disables them?]

As Paul says, if the drives are functional and it's a Windows problem, then the BIOS would be able to boot from a bootable CD, or you'd be able to read files on a CD using DOS commands from a Starup floppy.
One thing Paul taught me is to use a "Smart Boot Manager" on a floppy.
If that detects the drives [before Windows loads] or not, then you have an indication of whether they can be seen [are connecting and detected].

For post patrol (or guard) read moderator. I also obviously have bad eyesight and had missed Win98 on a couple of reads - sorry - he he - perhaps all the red ink blinded me.

If the BIOS is detecting the drive then as long as you use any boot floppy with CDROM support it should be able to access the CDROM using "Real Mode Drivers".

Normal access to a CDROM drive in Win9X is by using "Protected Mode Drivers". If a problem develops with the drivers there will be a switch to "MS-DOS Compatibility Mode for the CDROM and it will cease to function. Have a look at System Properties (RClick MyComputer and choose Properties) and see if any messages to this affect is written on the "Performance" Tab or whether it just states "Your system is configured for optimal performance".

When such a problem develops one effect can be to prevent further access to "Protected Mode" (drivers used by Windows) by writing noide entries in the registry - but this is usually also accociated with yellow punctuation marks in Device Manager. The registry should probably be edited if Device Manger reports such a problem.

OH MY GOODNESS, I can't believe this. Yesterday I did my normal routine, surfed the net and shut off the pc. Today I started it up, and all the sudden it accepted the recovery disk that I'd forgotten to remove from the drive. I'd started it several times with that same disk in there and it wasn't detected before...but for some reason, it took it today...Well, I didn't do the recovery...I stopped it. Took out the disk, let everything boot up, looked in my computer...and they are BOTH there now, and they are working. While I'm glad this ordeal is over...I'm left wondering what may have caused this and if you think it is something that may happen again. Anyone have any ideas what might be the culprit? Should I run the recovery still?

God bless, and thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who replied.

Lisa

"for some reason, it took it today"
Sounds like you have unreliable IDE cable connection. Somtimes it connects, and your drives disappear; then it reconnects and your drives reappear.
That's what has been happening to me, now and again.
When that happens I disconnect and reconnect the IDE cable, and that fixes it for a time. Does anyone know how to make the connections reliable?

That sounds reasonable, and I've seen a few CD ROM drives that simply would not consistently work, for no apparent reason. Swap cable, remove Device Manager ghost entries, swap Master/Slave positions (for dual CD setups) and even completely remove the IDE controllers, they STILL intermittently disappear...I've never solved that mystery...

OK, let's hope yours stays put, and do check the cable connections as advised above. You might even want to replace the cable entirly, and reseat the connectors a few times to make sure the contacts are clean. Be careful, the pins are small and not difficult to bend.

I would definitely remove any ghost entries in Device Manager as well, Windows won't balk or ask you for drivers on reboot, it uses generic CD ROM drivers and will simply install the drive without even blinking. So If you haven't done so already, boot into Safe Mode again and remove those extra CD ROM entries from Device Manager. Remove ALL CD drives listed, you don't know which one is actually in use and which ones are duplicates, usually several of the same drive will be listed.

EDIT: Sylvander - Only thing I know of is either replace the cable in case it's a loose or kinked wire, and reseat the cable as mentioned above to clean up the contacts. This could also be something electronically induced from inside the drive's circuitry, a flaky capacitor or diode or something of that nature.