CD R/RW Drive Missing in BIOS and Device Manager

Hi,

I am running Windows XP SP3 on an intel Pentium 4 processor. 500 MB RAM and HDD 80GB is partitioned with the System Partition being 15GB of which 5GB is free.

During the last month or so I have performed the following actions:

1) Upgraded from XP SP2 to XP SP3 with automatic updates ON
2) Installed Avast Antivirus, Spyware Terminator, TweakNow Powerpack, Easus Partition Manager and enabled Complex Scripts in Windows.
3) Uninstalled a few obsolete programs during which I may have deleted some shared files when the warning popped up.

The following problems have cropped up in the following order:

1) CD R/RW Drive disappeared in Mycomputer, Device Manager and BIOS. At times it used to get recognised randomly under SECONDARY IDE MASTER in BIOS and would work fine. The much talked about registry entries for UPPER and LOWER FILTERS do not exist for me in regedit. Scanning for hardware changes in Device Manager works sometimes. Essentially, the recognition behaviour was erratic. I even changed the Drive letter but the problem came back.

2) Seeing that I always had to press F1 at startup, I changed the CMOS battery. It turned out that the "new battery" was "old stock" and lost 15 minutes on the clock on Day 1. So I put the "old" battery back which still has some juice and keeps accurate time.

AFTER changing the CMOS battery, the CD Drive is still no longer recognised, not even erratically. The computer freezes randomly and needs a soft reboot. System restore too does not complete and freezes in between, AT THE SAME SPOT in the progress bar.

I am going to get a new CMOS battery (hopefully "new Stock ") but thought that I might start this thread in case anyone has some answers.

Thanks in anticipation.

Zerocool

 

That means the computer is having trouble setting/identifying hardware.

PeteC, gave some suggestions, but you really need to find out what is causing the press F1 at startup.

You are trying to get a new CMOS battery, the one you are using could be at "the brink" of failing.

It appears to be using IDE controllers rather than SATA. Check the Master/Slave settings and you change to CS (Cable Select), but Master/Slave are generally preferred. Go to the website of the CD/DVD drive you are using and find the installation instructions. If there is a HDD on the same cable, it might use jumpers for Master, Slave, Cable Select (CS), Master with Slave, Master without Slave...

If it seems to be an IDE drive problem, check the jumpers.

Matt

 

Hi, I've now implemented the following steps in order:

1) Changed the CMOS Battery. It now keeps correct time. I no longer have to press F1 at startup.

2) Checked the IDE Cables. The Cd R/RW Drive is on the second IDE Cable with the "Master" pin set connected to it. The Slave is unused. Haven't changed the Master/Slave/Cable Select Settings from where it was and when it used to work properly. So all is unchanged here with the pins plugged in properly.

At this point, the two problems persisted, i.e. CD Drive missing and computer freezes randomly.

3) In Device Manager, changed the "Transfer Mode" setting [Secondary IDE Channel -> Properties -> Advanced Settings ] from "PIO" to "DMA(If Available) ".

Upon "Scan for hardware changes" the CD Drive appeared in Device Manager but disappeared soon after.

4) In BIOS, changed the boot sequence to "CD ROM" first followed by "Hard Disk ", thereby forcing it to look for the CD Drive.

Presto, it recognises the CD Drive. All worked well, but I must say that the detection rate is 8 out of 10. There is the odd reboot when it doesn't detect the CD Drive as the Secondary IDE Channel.

The computer continues to freeze randomly, mostly when Programs such as Skype, Firefox or Picasa upload photos are being used. Sometimes it just freezes even when simply loading up startup applications after boot.

So, I'm keeping the thread open to see how the CD Drive detection goes over the next few days.

I really need to fix the random freezing part, because I'm sure that all the soft boots are doing it no good. Any clues.

Thanks a lot for your replies Pete and Matt. They pointed me in the right direction.

 

How old is the drive ? Since cd r/rw drives have been not on the market since last 2 years, my guess is around 2 years. The drive itself could be bad.

Unplug the drive & see if your random freezes disappear. if they do, change the drive & hopefully everything would be fine.