Invisible CD-ROM's

Fidelis

I have two CD drives in my system; a Relysis 16x DVD-ROM & a Philips 4/4/24 CD-RW. I removed the DVD drive, powered up my PC and, naturally, the drive letter (D:) was missing. I then put it back into the pc, hooked it up properly, powered the PC up again, but there's still no drive letter associated to the drive. I thought CD-ROM's didn't need drivers for installation or anything like that. I don't know exactly how, but now my CD-RW drive is missing aswell. As far as Windows is concerned, I've only got my C: drive (HD).

I've hooked the drives up properly. I even played an audio cd through the DVD drive using the buttons on the front cover of the drive itself (first time I've ever used them!). They just aren't registering with the computer.

I've gone into the "Add New Hardware" tool in the Control Panel but when I set it to automatically detect new hardware, it comes up with nothing. Similarly, there's no option to add any form of CD drives using said application.

Anyone help me out on this one? Cheers.

BigEejit

What OS have you got?, I had something similar happen to me a good while back on Windaz 2k and i ran the hardware wizard, and on the first or second screen it asks are you adding something new or removing something .. well it wasnt detecting a cdrom no matter what, but when i had a peek in remove hardware .. there it was .. I removed it and rebooted and voila

Fidelis

I'm using W98SE.

I tried different settings in the BIOS and then loaded the default settings but still no luck. I can't figure out what's wrong... the drives are there, connected properly & functional (played audio CD through one drive) yet it seems that Windows can't see that they're there.

Any suggestions?

Dr Bolouswki

Do they show up in device manager? If so remove them and reboot...

Boot into DOS and delete autoexec.bat and config.sys then reboot...

MMmmmm...

this may be relevant...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320553

man... I've heard this one b4 - can't remember.... I'll keep trying....:mad:

Fidelis

*Bump*

Hoping that someone can help me out here. Been without CD-ROM access for the last month

I can't see the drives in Windows Explorer. They're physically set-up correctly, played an audio CD through the drive, the lights on them work etc. They're connected properly, just can't see them from my OS (Win98SE).

At the start, I removed one of the drives by clicking 'remove' in the Device Manager. It dissappeared completely but never came back up, never tried to re-install itself. Any idea's?

TinCool

Format C:

kmb

seen it before,must be ide cable,can u see drives in bios?also if u switch ide on motherboard will sysrem boot still,if not clear the cmos and it will sort problem unless cable is faulty may not be in mothermboard fully..

po0k

Not try to be condascending, but do you have the IDE cables in the right way?

The red line (pin1) should be facing into the 4-pin molex for the power connector (ie facing to the right side of the drive, label side up, looking form the cable's perspective)

Swap the cable with something else.
The connector that's off on it's own should be connected to the motherboard, the slave should be on the middle connector and the master on the other end.
make sure there aren't any pins bent and that the cable is in the right way on the motherboard.
Test the drive in a mate's machine too.

Fidelis

"The red line (pin1) should be facing into the 4-pin molex for the power connector"

Yep, that's the way I have it. It doesn't seem possible to actually connect the IDE cable in any other way because there's a small groove at the top of the cable which only allows it to go into the drive in one particular way. But yea, it's connected as you describe above.

"The connector that's off on it's own should be connected to the motherboard"

Which connector is this? What does it look like? There's no calbles going to the motherboard. There's the molex, the IDE and a black audio connector which I've circled in blue in this photo. The audio cable is connected to the sound card.

"The slave should be on the middle connector and the master on the other end"

Sorry, Syxpak, I don't know what you mean. Can you dumb it down a bit more?

I really appreciate the response, guys. Thanks!

Webmonkey

Try These:

Go Start->Run. Type Regedit, hit return. In regedit click edit ->find. Type in NOIDE. Click Find Next. If it finds something delete that key by pressing delete. You might want to backup ur registry first.


============================================


Click on the Start button, go to Settings and choose the Control Panel.
Find the System icon at the bottom of the Control Panel window, and double-click on it.
When it comes up, click on the far right tab at the top that says Performance.
If there is a white window that says, "Drive C: Using MS-DOS Compatibility Mode File System", then there is a problem with drivers on your system, and you should contact Technical Support.
If the white box is not present, then click on the Device Manager tab at the top of the window.
Click the [+] plus sign next to Hard Disk Controllers (If there is a [-] minus sign skip this).
There should be three entries below hard disk controller. One will be a PCI Bus Mastering controller and the other two will be Primary and Secondary IDE controllers. (This will not be the case for a MediaGX system. Owners of a MediaGX system will only see two entries, both reading Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller.)
If the Primary and Secondary controllers read Single FIFO, then your Controllers have not been installed properly. You will need to contact Technical Support for help installing the proper drivers for your motherboard.

kmb

are they both set the same ie master or slave?did u try what i said before?they should be different ie 1 master 1 slave!!!

Webmonkey

Well are they seen in the BIOS first of all I guess , that would answer the secondary master and slave

Fidelis

Webmonkey, I tried those two things you suggested. Nothing was found in the registry and there was no white box in the system properties tab.

kmb, the BIOS can't see the drives. By the way, it's a Gateway machine. I'll go through what I see in my BIOS:

---

IDE CONFIGURATION

---

IDE Controller: Both (Both/Secondary/Primary/Disabled)
Hard Disk Pre-Delay: 6 Seconds

Primary IDE Master: [IBM-DPTA-372050-(PM)]
Primary IDE Slave: [None]
Secondary IDE Master: [None]
Secondary IDE Slave: [None]

---

For example, if I scroll down to the 'Primary IDE Slave' entry and press Return, the following information appears:

---

Primary IDE Slave [Primary Slave]

---

Type: [None] (None/Auto/User/Other ATAPI/IDE Removable/CD-ROM/ATAPI Removable)

Multi-Sector Transfers: [Disabled]
LBA Mode Control: [Disabled]
Transfer Mode: [Standard]
Ultra DMA: [Disabled]

---

The text in bold are the different values I can manually set. Although, whenever I set the values e.g. Type: CD-ROM, it isn't there the next time I go into the BIOS (yes, I'm saving before exiting ).

leeroybrown

This may have been suggested already, but ...

In your last post it says:

Primary IDE Master: IBM-DPTA-372050-(PM)]
Primary IDE Slave: [None]
Secondary IDE Master: [None]
Secondary IDE Slave: [None]

Just wondering ihave you got the particular IDE channel set to Auto Detect in the BIOS? There is generally a None option that will prevent a detection attempt. Just cycle throught the options and be suire that the channels are set to Auto.

To get both drives to detect the following config would work:

CDRW Drive - master (There will be a jumper [small plastic & metal piece joining two pins] on the drive with a master option)

DVD Drive - slave (Again the jumper but this time to the slave position)

Then the same IDE Cable into both drives. There should be a notch that ensures it only goes in one way up. The connector further from the middle one plugs into the motherboard.

This should get them detecting in the BIOS. If not try with only one plugged in on the cable.

(There is also a chance you damaged the cable plugging in/unplugging them)

kmb

they should be set at auto in the bios not none,do this and your away...ps if you disconnect one cdrom will the other work?if answer is yes then both are set the same by the jumper at back of cdroms(1 master 1 slave)otherwise they conflict!!!!!!!!!

Fidelis

The jumpers on the back of the two of them were on Slave. I have never even heard of these parts let alone had any knowledge that you could change things at the back of the drives.

The drives work perfectly, thanks a million guys!

Thanks to webmonkey, leeroybrown, kmb & Syxpak for your help!

Webmonkey

Your Welcome, glad you got things working!

./Webmonkey

po0k

Originally posted by Fidelis
Sorry, Syxpak, I don't know what you mean. Can you dumb it down a bit more?

I really appreciate the response, guys. Thanks!

What I meant by the "cable off on its own" was the IDE cable.
it has 3 connectors on it.
2 for devices - about 6"s apart - and one for the motherboard.
The motherboard one should be ~10"s away from the middle connector.
The "connector off on its own" is the motherboard one
The middle connector should be plugged into the slave afaik, and the last device connector should eb plugged into the master, afaik.

Glad you got it working in the end, and for future reference, before you go trawling through software troubleshooting, try to make sure the hardware side is sorted first, as it's generally the easiest to troubleshoot.