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I noticed this morning that Windows XP was not showing my cd/rom drive under Control Panel. At first I figured it was a hardware issue so I bought another cd/rom drive and installed it with a new IDE cable and while the drive does show up under Device Manager it has a yellow exclamation point and it says that the driver was installed but the device could not be found. I have tried everything I know to try but with no luck. I thought maybe a virus could be causing this problem but I ran Nortons and it found nothing. Even my BIOS shows that I have a CD/ROM drive. I've also tried switching the drive from primary master to secondary master and that did nothing. I guess what I dont understand is that I've been using this drive for 2 years with absolutely no problems until now.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

I'm going to say it's likely a MB (controller) problem. (Maybe try reinstalling or updating the MB Drivers?) Do you have the ability to put the non working CD rom drive into another computer? Have you installed any new software or programs recently that may have changed something? Maybe you can do a system restore to a point that was before the CD rom wasn't being recognized?

Another trick I have tried for a faulty piece of hardware, is to remove power from it (Power down the computer and unplug it from the wall) for about 1 min, restart the computer and see if the device works again.

i had a drive flake out once on my work pc ... check the cables, plug it into a different mobo port ...

Gator wrote:i had a drive flake out once on my work pc ... check the cables, plug it into a different mobo port ...

I did all that. I tried a new cd/rom drive and new IDE cable. I also tried using it on both controllers (primary and secondary) and Windows still fails to detect it. I think my problem is software/OS related

Be sure to uninstall it in Device Manager before attempting or beginning anything that's listed here.



Reset Cmos:
By moving the jumper on your motherboard:
That’s located next to the battery. Move it over 2 pins ( there’s only 3 pins there ) wait a minute and move it back again.


Reboot :

Works ?

No ?

Not sure where the jumper is? It should be right next to the Mother Board Battery. Ok? .. Now move it over two pins.

Still lost? Okay Damn it Jim ! , where is Scotty ?
Okay we cant wait for him , lets move on .

K - Unplug the computer. Remove the Battery from your mother board. ( some might even unplug the cable connecting the to the Motherboard.

Wait one Minute

Put it all back together again


Reboot:

Now see if you can see your CDROM drive after reboot.

No ?

Damn It ! ( They killed Kenny! You bastards!" )

Okay , do all of the above. The crucial thing is to reset CMOS: Then , ( After all else fails ) Reinstall Windows with a Fresh version of it. Don’t copy any old settings. I’m talking about a fresh CMOS with a Fresh Windows. Back up your files like My Documents before installing a fresh copy of XP , or you'll lose it.


Yup, I’ve had this happen to me a few times before. Really!
Or as Jedi would say, Uh .. yeah : P

Well, after talking to you tonight on Xfire, and not being able to boot to CD on bootup, leads me to believe that your MB is malfunctionig. Hope you can get it figured out.

Forgot to say that if you reset your CMOS you’ll need to reinstall your Chipset drivers.

Windows Should be able to see your CDROM without the chipset drivers. Once that’s accomplished , then install your Motherboard drivers ( aka ) chipset drivers and your good to go.

Try reinstalling xp? Otherwise I would tend to agree with SB..probably a mobo issue....did you try reinstalling the mobo drivers?

you do not need to reinstall chipset drivers because you reset your cmos. absolutely not. only need to do that if you uninstall them from the os.

and so the master has spoken. when in doubt, I defer to Steel. LOL

Panzer,
try removing the cdrom device (first) and your primary and secondary hard drive controllers in device manager. if it asks to delete the drivers, do so. then you should be prompted to reboot (if not, do so anyway). then your pc should rediscover them when it goes back into the os.

but, as stated, if you have stuff set correctly in the bios (i.e. boot from cdrom enabled, it is first boot device) and that does not work it is some other issue (actual hardware probably). a last resort could be to reflash the bios on your mainboard.

just as an aside - the cd drive power is plugged in???

im a little late on this post.

i had a problem like this once a few MBs back. what i ended up doing to get it to work was play around with the auto detection. at first i went threw the cmos and detected everything and left it at that. then when it started flaking out i would put it back on auto and it would work awhile. i never figured out why it was doing this but it would work for awhile and i didnt question it lol. after a new Mboard things went back to normal. so it could be a glitch in the controller maybe?

one thing im experiencing now is i will lose a drive off and on, but usualy a good wiggle of the connections and a reboot fixed that for a few more weeks.

just a note, im still useing the same DVD writer without problems today.

and so the master has spoken. when in doubt, I defer to Steel. LOL

Lol , the master...

Okay well it’s too bad PanzerMayer hasn’t gotten back to us Impatient folks , so , with noting better to I dug up some good sites that’s worth a look.


This one is for checking Motherboard issues and much more.
http://www.motherboards.mbarron.net/testing.html


DVD & CDROM drives suddenly not recognized
http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/ ... nized.html


From Triton:
Have you tried deleting upper and lower filters for the device.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/EN-US/

You can also try;
Locate the cdrom.inf file and "right" click on it, chose install and reboot.
If you have SP2 installed the latest version will be in;
C:\WINDOWS\Servicepackfiles\i386

I would like to give a big "Thanks" to everyone who posted troubleshooting tips in this thread but I finally got fed up and reinstalled Windows. And guess what? Windows now detects my cd rom drive and it's working fine. Grrr....

I have no freaking idea what happened but it was obviously a Windows related issue and NOT hardware.

I'm curious though, how come you couldn't boot to the Windows CDROM last night? You obviously would have to be able to do that to reinstall Windows XP. Did you follow Falker's advise on the CMOS reset?

Please enlighten me.

No, I did not do the CMOS reset. The problem ended up being a Windows Registry corruption. I tried doing a Windows repair first but that failed. The CD Rom drive was not booting off the cd until I made the cd rom the primary boot device in the bios.

Lol!

That's one of the things I said for you to do the other night, see if the computer will boot from the CD ROM, and you had said no it wouldn't boot from the CD. Thus, why it lead me to believe that it was a MB problem...

At least you fixed it.

it would not because the bios was not set for it...

" if you have stuff set correctly in the bios (i.e. boot from cdrom enabled, it is first boot device)"

Ok, you guys done with making me feel bad about myself? LOL