Lost CD ROM

On the kids' computer, the CD Rom has quit working. Upon investigation, I see that this drive has even disappeared from the device manager I bought a new CDRW to replace it and thought the new driver might help. No good Any suggestion??

 

Does it show any unknown devices in the Device Manager?

How is the CDRW hooked up? On the same ribbon cable as the HDD? On the secondary IDE Controller?

Is it set for Master? Slave?

Are your IDE Controllers listed under Hard Disk Controllers in the Device Manager? If there, is there any problem indicated?

Is the CDRW drive recognised in BIOS?

We'll start with those questions and go from there........

 

Something to check on.

Try a Start~run~sysedit and check the config.sys for a 16bit ( DOS ) CDROM driver.

If there it will knock out the CDROM in 98.

BillyBob

 

Kevin and BillyBob, thanks for the response. Here are some answers.
No unknown devices
Hooked up after the HD, same ribbon, as a slave
CDRW is recognized by bios
No mention of a 16 bit cdrom in sys config
BUT in the device manager, there is a listing for a primary and a secondary IDE controllers, both of which show exclamation marks with the error on both saying "This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed
Code10 "

What are your suggestions?

Thanks

 

Your CD is an IDE device, bad IDE controllers is a big part of the problem.
You could try Removing all instances of the IDE controllers so that the main heading Hard Disk Controllers that they are under disappears. Then Reboot. They should be redetected and installed.

 

Those yellow exclamation marks will get ya' every time. You may need some motherboard chipset drivers if Mark's good advice doesn't resolve it for you. You may also want to consider putting that CDRW on the secondary IDE cable for better overall performance.

 

This article might help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;130179&FR=1

 

i am new to posting so i hope i have done this right.my question is:when i go to enter some sites on the internet it want let me in .it tells me -cannot find server. in my address box it says -res://c:\\windows\system\shdocl. what does this mean? my computer was already loaded with windows98 when i brought it terefor i don`t have a win98 startup disk.

 

After having to be out of town for a few days, I hope someone is still following this thread. I followed Mark's advice to no avail, and Rockster's suggestion of updating the drivers only proved that mine were up to date, and the only other cable in there has a plug which is not quite the same as what goes to the CDRW. Cliff's link to Microsoft got me looking at the MS-DOS compatibility issue, and evidently I have some deeper issues here. This computer's HD is running on MS-DOS compatibility mode. I followed the article's suggestion in looking for a boot sector virus, and there doesn't seem to be one....where can I go from here?

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions

 

Go to Start\Run, type in Regedit, and press Enter. Then go to the Toolbar at View\Find, type in NoIDE and let it search. When found it should appear in the right pane, delete it and then reboot. Post back the results.

 

This is nuts! Following your instructions explicitly...twice...that thing shows nothing found...nothing to delete

 

From the MSKB article:

Step 1: Doesn't apply

Step 2: You've already completed

Step 3: If the controller shows in Device Manager (Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - Device Manager), but has a yellow exclamation mark next to it, double click on the hard drive controller and see if there's a message about why the controller's having a problem. Please let us know what the problem is described as.

Step 4: There's a very good step-by-step in the MSKB article on troubleshooting the yellow exclamation mark.

Step 5: To check this, click on Start - Run and type in SYSEDIT. Click on the System.ini file to bring it to the front and search for the command listed in the article.

Step 6: Since the system was working correctly at one time, this step most likely doesn't apply.

I've seen virus' other than a boot sector virus cause this problem also. If you've got an anti-virus program installed, configure it to scan all files - not just program files - make sure the program has the latest updates and run a full system virus scan.

You might also check in the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files to see if there's a driver loading that Windows doesn't like. Click on Start - Run and type in SYSEDIT. I'm sure someone will check it over and give their opinion if you post the contents here. You can use MSCONFIG (Start - Run - MSCONFIG) to temporarily disable commands in these two files. Click on the appropriate tab and take the check mark out of the line you wish to disable. Disabling a command in these files shouldn't have an adverse affect on Windows, Windows is supposed to be able to work correctly without any entries in these files. If something doesn't work properly, you can always re-enable the commands.

Edit: Don't worry about not finding the NOIDE - it's not always present. It's just one possibility.

 

Well the news is getting better. Upon following Cliffs instructions, I discovered the notation that although the drivers were up to date, they were not installed. What I did was to have Windows look up possible drivers, and although none were the exact one needed. I installed one, and the cdrw is now in business. I'll keep working this, but looks like all the advice did the trick.

Thanks to everyone!

 

Good luck

 

You would be well advised to research your motherboard and chipset and determine whether or not you need to install MB drivers. All VIA chipsets and a great many Intel require specific MB drivers and this could impact proper recognition of your primary and secondary IDE controllers.