Cd-rw

Can someone remined me why a cd device would get assigned to m
without my doing.

its a cd-rw

Only way I can see to set it to d is with tweakui but after a reboot then theres nothing listed in my computer, so curently i have it marked as both m and d, BUT this way I cannot use normal data cds.
IT will recognize most music cd's and a niephbors burned cds

In case its asked, no theres are no problem devices listed.

I am on XP now, but we had the same problem in win me.

we even tried another device ( just a cd player), no go our pc will not see it.

 

Hi Lonny, I can't tell you why the drive showed up as "m ", so I probably won't be of any help. The only reason I can think of for it getting 'm" would be you have 12 other drives on the machine.

I would like to know how you assigned a drive letter using Tweak UI. Or are you referring to "Auto Play "?

You say "there are no problem devices" Does this drive show up in Device Manager under "CD DVD drives "? If so, have you tried uninstalling it in device manager, rebooting and allowing Windows to reload it?

In this Windows XP Home machine, the drive letters can be changed using "Computer Management" "Drive Management" and right clicking the drive.

A couple of times, I physically added drives (not cd) to this machine, and for Windows, they just were'nt there. I don't remember if they showed up on the boot screen. But they showed up in "Drive Management" with no drive letter. Right clicking the drive enabled me to assign a drive letter, then Windows added the drive to it's "My Computer" listing, and all was well.

You might want to look in "Computer Management" ~ "Drive Management" and see if the drive is there. If so, what the drive letter status is. I don't think if it has a drive letter, changing it to "D" would help. But just maybe.....


Also, other cause might be wrong jumper setting on the CD drive. Master? Slave? When you tried the other CD ROM, did you plug it in as an additional drive or did you replace the current on the same channel? Jumper setting checked out? Possibly a bad cable or bad connection to MOBO?

It seems very strange that Windows can't see the drive but it will play CDs from it.

Just thinking out loud here, of all the problems I have had, this has not been one of them. Thank goodness

Hope you get it sorted out!

Martin

 

I've seen some OEM machines that call the CD M: (older IBM. and Compq) and I always thought it was something in the proptietary bios. I never found a way to change this, and really didn't try very hard because they worked normally.

 

If it works with some other letter, go for it. Except for C, I've renamed all my drive. My hard drive is C, F, and G. F for files and G for Ghost.

My CD drives are : R--Read, M (DVD: Movies), and W (Writer). R, M, and W are actually 0, 2, and 1. Windows has no problem finding them.

 

Hi Guys

Dont know how to ask these questions without appearing mm well lets just say hardware isnt my thing

I haven't been able to tinker with the other drive our neighbor had brought over before, he said he was going to re-check it on another PC.
I have a little with the OEM, apparently TweakUI just hides a drive DU, form showing in my computer.
I have re-assigned it as d, with Drive Management as Martin explained.
the PC still cant see the majority of Cd's we have. 99 %
its will see most music cd's and rarely mixed to if they have some music on them,(age of mythology is one example) 1rst CD works every time second will not.

what weird is when our neighbor came over we were able to use all of his burned Cd's, every time.

as for the jumper, I wouldn't think that would matter because its never been changed, neither has anything in bios.(But it has been flashed once,updated)
There is only one thing on that cable the CD drive. and yes we changed the cable several times

back a couple years, if I remember correctly device manager used to show two devices, one of which was just a CD player (m i think) the other d was the writer, does that make any sense ? even when theres only one device ?
Then it started changing from (as shown in my computer) as m or d
and started getting progressively worse, meaning I would have to repeatedly insert the CD , now that wont work.(yes its clean)

In your bios's are your CD devices set up as slave or master ?
Ive hardly ever been in there, surly you can tell

 

Lonny: Is the drive showing up in the "My Computer" window and shows OK in Device Manager? If in device manager and shows OK, sounds like you might have an "Auto Play" setting that is messing up the works.

If you can right click the drive in my computer, you should get a drop down menu with one of the selections being "Auto Play" This allows you to select what happens in auto play for each type of CD you insert in the drive.

I've had some similar problems, so I set auto play to just display files. Note, to see each auto play selection for each type of CD, use the drop down menu in the auto play window. For some reason, no matter what I do, my CD drive sees all CD's as music cd's and tries to open them with Windows Media player. Even the blank ones. Selecting auto play for music CDs to display files was my workaround.

And even if it is the only drive on the cable, I'd still make sure the jumper is set to either master or cable select. If the settings aren't displayed on the drive itself, go to the mfg. web site for the make/model of the drive, the correct jumper settings should be there.

Also, MSFT has published an "auto play auto fix" that you can download from their download site. Just go to www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for "auto play fix" If you can't find it, PM me with your email address and I'll send it. It can repair auto play if it is malfunctioning and will revert all setting to default.

As far as I know, the BIOS just reports during POST what it finds on the various cables. I don't know that there is a setting to select which drive is what in BIOS.

How a drive can have two drive letters is more than I comprehend, but then, I have only been around since Windows 98, and mostly I don't comprehend any of this stuff.

Good Luck with this one.

Martin

 

Thanks a million for the advice, I wouldnt have found that ms tool.

Yes it shows correctly in my computer and device manager with no problems.

The autoplay is what I had thought when this problem first started,(about a year ago)
seams we are on to something here,
I did find the ms tools , and it supposedly fixed some thing, report below
:but, the problem still exists, (yes I did restart a few times)
I can with right click properties autoplay options change everything and
get even audio cds not to work,(meaning I open the cd and there is nothing there) never did get a regular cd to prompt or be recognized, tinkering around more i have music cds back and can play them,

whats Odd is even with everything set to pronpt for an action that first ms cd age of empires (install disk) plays automaticly

so as it stands now I can get 99% of our music cds to work and any/all re-writable's and 1% of the others.
Hopefull our nieghbor will have a clue

 

I'm happy to hear you are making some progress. Another thought I had is if the drive is older, maybe the laser lens is dirty. I don't know much about it but, I know you can buy a lens cleaner disk, it has a little brush on it that supposedly cleans the lens when the disk with the brush spins inside the player. I got one at either Radio Shack or Wal-Mart. Whether it is neccesary or does any good, I don't really know.

Also, messing around with my auto play settings, I found that if you select an action to perform by clicking on the drive, it seems not to stick, but if you select "prompt me for an action" and then put in a CD, the window that opens allows you select an action and has a check box for "always ", I'm trying that to see if it will stick.

It was really a pain when I put a blank CD or DVD disk in, it opened Media Player. Now, it, most of the time, opens a blank CD or DVD with a writeable folder. Just what I want to happen.

I guess if we muddle around long enough we may be able to get the dam thing to work the way it is supposed to.

Martin

 

Review:

The original question? I don't think it's a problem so long as the drive works.

Proves nothing; it must be dead (you connected and jumpered it correctly, of course).

New question?

Ah, but how is it jumpered? I would say it should be master. I've seen some not jumpered at all, and they work for a while that way.

NO! I've never seen nor heard of that.

"progressively worse" sounds to me like drive is ageing, and near end of its life. The laser runs on a track (like an overhead crane) looking down at the cd, and like any mechanical device, it can get out of alignment and show signs of wear, like inaccuracy.

Bios just reports how drive is jumpered (master or slave), if drive is visible to bios. I don't use cable select, so can't say what bios does in that case.

IMO, Lonny, You'll soon be in the market for a new writer. Personally, when prices are reasonable, I favor replacing drives after a reasonable effort, such as you've made in this case, to get it working.

 

Darn after all that,, the cd player he had brought over was broken,,

So all the effort he brought a know good device over and it works without any problems.

 

Happy to hear all is well, at least CD wise.

Martin