Missing CD-RW Drive

Hi all, I took the jump to install XP and now am pulling my hair with what has resulted. I have a quite old, but still working fine Yamaha CD-RW. Upon installation and reboot of the system into the first time I used XP, my E: drive has disappeared and I can find no information on how to get my system to recognize it again. My device manager does not even have a tab for a CD-ROM. So I am stuck without a CD drive to install anymore software, etc... I contacted Yamaha hoping to get drivers, but the only support they offered was that XP already had the correct drivers. I tried the add new hardware in the control panel and it did not locate, nor offer installation more my CD-RW drive.

Can someone please point me in the right direction here? Am I going to have to buy a new CD drive?

Thanks for any help.

 

It sounds like a cable problem to me.

You didn't say whether you have a CD-ROM drive in addition to the CR-RW drive, or if you have any other drives (such as an internal ATAPI ZIP drive) on your IDE buses, but CD-RW drives work best if they're not on the same bus as the CD-ROM drive, so a suggested configuration would be:

IDE 1 Master: Hard Drive
IDE 1 Slave: CD-ROM drive, if applicable
IDE 2 Master: CD-RW
IDE 2 Slave: other drive, if applicable

Be certain that the jumpers on the drives are set properly. The settings differ from one manufacturer to another, but there's usually a diagram on the drive, and you may have to remove the drive to check it.

Make sure that the ribbon cables are installed properly and seated firmly. Normally (but not always), the ribbon has a red stripe on the wire for the number 1 pin, and that should face towards you when you connect the cable to the drive. Also, the cable connector is frequently (but not always) keyed, so that it can go in only one way.

The power connector should have the yellow wire facing you. It is keyed so it can go in only one way, but make sure that it's seated firmly.

(Note that for a floppy drive, the situation is the reverse for both ribbon and power cables. The red stripe on the ribbon faces away from you, but the red wire on the power cable is towards you.)

Hope this helps, but keep us informed.

Jim