Weird CD-Rom/CD-RW problems, please help!

Hi guys

Ok this problem is affecting both my cd-rom and my cd-rw. Both drives will read cds that have pictures, music, movies, documents, whatever, but neither one will run SETUP files from a program installation disk. If I double click the drive icon it says "device is not ready ". However, I can manually open the contents of the cd. Once there, the setup file is right in front of me. I double click and it gives me the "file cannot be found" error. I even tried manually copying the contents onto my harddrive. It looked like it worked, setup.exe was right there but still when i double-clicked I got "Windows cannot find D:\Setup.exe. Make sure you typed the name correctly blah blah ".

I don't know what's wrong. It's been like this for a few months. Even other files on the setup cds will open but NOT the setup.exe file. It's been about 5 programs this has happened with.

Any ideas? I'd appreciate any help.

I'm running windows XP

 

Maybe this will work......
Insert the disc into the CD-ROM drive.
Select Start>Run>Browse
Click the 'Look in' drop-down menu, highlight the CD-ROM icon and select Open
Highlight the Setup.exe file and select Open
The Run window will reappear with the correct Command Line, click OK

 

Thanks for the reply but....still nothing.
The correct line comes up d:\start32.exe but it still says "windows cannot locate d:\start32.exe etc"

 

Hmmm weird is rite

There are some drastic measures we can take to fix this but me thinks OLD Zephyer will be bye in a bit to save the day He no doubt is researching as I am this very minute BTW.....do you have a ZIP drive installed also? These can foul up cdrom drive controlers!

 

Are you logged on as Administrator when you try to install an application? That's the same message I've seen when trying to install an application on a user account that was not an administrator account.

 

Hi, Miz, thanks for the reply. That seemed like a great idea, I tried it, and still nada

Thanks for trying though.

Any other ideas? Looks like we may have to go to those drastic measures you were referring to Rancher

 

cdrom weird

Darnit I thought Miz had something goin' for a minute Does sound like a "permisions thing" but if ya checked it out.....!
solomon68 How much space you got left on your hard drive? If big enuf you can try this to isolate security, permisions, adminstrator ****. Create a folder on C name it cdcopy or blah blah. Find a small proggy on a cd like maybe NERO, & copy the whole thing to folder cdcopy. Now try the start/run/ browse thing to start the install. If it does this way then you have lack of cdrom control where the installation rites are concerned.

 

It will be interesting to see if you are allowed to copy it as Rancher suggests and then run it from your HD copy location.

This reminds me of a similar problem I had trying to add a feature to MsWorks and it kept delivering the error message, "Cannot find D:\blahblah.exe." The problem was, I had added another hard drive after I had installed MsWorks and my cd-rom designation was now "E:" yet MsWorks remembered it had been initially installed from the "D:" drive and kept dogging me for it.

I tracked down the proper .inf file and changed all reference from D: to E: and all went well then.

I'm not sure any of that relates to your problem but it's nice to get it off my chest. Also it may give you cause to doubt that your drives are identified properly at all points. Perhaps reinstalling them would be in order. For a test, delete the burner from Device manager and shut down completely. Then actually unplug it and see if the cd-rom drive works as a stand alone. Do you now or have you ever used any drive renaming program? The drives may have gotten crossed up in the registry. When you get that error, is it actually trying to read the proper drive (light flashes on drive with the disk in question in it)? If the empty drive (other drive) is flashing, try pulling the disk after the error displays and sticking it in the other drive and clicking "Retry."

I can't be of much help here but I'll check back and hope to see what you finally come up with.

 

Ok Rancher, I copied it to my hard drive. This is my half life cd so I named the folder "halflife ".

Now it just says "windows cannot locate c:\halflife\setup.exe ..blah blah blah ", even though I'm looking right at it. The file is 58.5 kb.

hehe

Zephyr thanks for your idea. Uninstalled the cdburner/rom, and my regular cdrom still wouldn't open the file. How do I go about reinstalling both? I mean theres no way they are both broken right? That'd be too much of a coincidence.

Don't know what to try....


Again, the weird thing I think is they play music/movies/txt files just will not work at all with the setup files. That must mean they're not broken...

 

Perhaps you should do a full disk virus scan with latest dope.

 

Oh No

Looks like deep stinkin' stuff yer in dude. It ain't yer cdrom & it ain't yer cd burner!! It's the computer, man

The copy to hard drive tells the story.
Better off your antivirus cuz the migstr32 or klez or blah blah shut it down. First however, turn off system restore. Rite click my computer/properties then system restore tab. Check Turn off restore on all drives. Now go here http://www.bitdefender.com/html/free_tools.php to get the removal tools. Then download & install AVG free edition from www.grisoft.com & install this & keep it updated

 

You guys think I got a virus? I have PC-cillin. It runs every week and hasn't found a virus yet? To be safe, I just updated it and ran it again on my C drive, no viruses turned up.
However, from previous scans there are 6 files quarantined. They are

A0025134.exe and four more just like that, and A0.tmp. The original location of these files was in c:\System Volume Information\_restore{a bunch of numbers and letters}\RP18
Are these maybe important system files that PC-cillin is thinking are viruses? What should I do with them?


I will try what you said, Rancher, should I download every one of those fixes? Or do you think it's one particular virus I might have?

Thanks for your help guys

 

virus? perhaps

Could be anyone of the newer virus' that get past the best know anti-virus software & trick the software into letting itself "slide bye" That's why the removeal tools! But do the README so you don't just re-infect from the registry & system restore as I mentioned. If you do have infected box the "tools" will fix it. If ya don't then we can do the drastic measures, eh

 

The virus was probably SirCam or Pretty Park or one of the newer variants. See here and here for a fix.

 

virus

Yep, good thinkin' Bret thx for jumpin' in

 

Hey guys

I tried the virus stuff...still not working.

Rancher was your "drastic solution" erasing the hd and reinstalling windows? Or was there something else you had in mind?

Thanks for the help.

 

repair xp

Your registry seems to be *******. It COULD be caused by a redirecting virus but I doubt it. Seems more like your associations are messed up. I sure would like to know what happens when you run a setup.exe already on your hard drive, ie, NOT one copied from the cd-rom. You might do a search of your drive to find one and try it. If they too will not run then you certainly have a virus or corrupt registry.

Have you already tried a system restore to a previous restore point? Try that too.

BTW.....can you restart, press F8 & select safemode command prompt. Now type C:\chkdsk /r <enter>

 

>>I sure would like to know what happens when you run a setup.exe already on your hard drive, ie, NOT one copied from the cd-rom. You might do a search of your drive to find one and try it. If they too will not run then you certainly have a virus or corrupt registry. <<

I haven't tried the chkdisk or system restore yet, but I thought I'd reply to let you know that a setup.exe that is already on the harddrive runs perfectly fine, or the setup.exe of any shareware programs I download. They are fine. I'll give your new ideas a shot! thanks for the help.

 

Hi again

When I ran chkdsk /r at the c prompt in safe mode w/command prompt I got this....

"The type of file system is FAT32.
Cannot lock current drive.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (y/n) "

And thats it. Should I hit Y?

Thanks cya

 

Yep

Yes, & it should repair in the background during bootup. If it does not we will just repair your instalation via the installation cd. You do have this cd, rite?