Cdrom won't read win98 or Office 2000

cdrom drive will read audio and some data cd's but will not read the win98 full cd or even the office 2000 cd...
I've double checked in my computer to see if it will read it there but get a "device not accessible" and "e:\ not ready" when the cd is in it...
I've tested the cd's on another system and they read fine...even swapped the cd drive to another system and had it work fine then also...
Checked the registry under: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer to make sure it was set for 95..
and:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom to see if it was set at 1...
even went and loaded TweakUi to see if it would help but no luck
and of course auto run is enabled in settings of the cdrom...
Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

Boot using a Windows Startup disk with CD-ROM support enabled. See if it will read it in DOS mode. If it will read in DOS mode and not in Windows, copy the files from the Win9x folder on the CD to a temp folder on the hard disk. Install from there.

Possibilities are:
Virus
Corrupted Windows files
Corrupt Registry

Also, you might want to wash the suspect CDs using dishwashing liquid, rinse with warm water and dry with lint-free cloth.

 

I forgot to mention that I've tried to boot from both the cd and in dos...
It won't recognise the cd when it's either the win98 or office 2000...
cleaning the cd didn't help either, but thanks for the try...any other ideas?

 

Are these factory CDs or are they copies of factory CDs? From the symptoms you describe, my guess is they are CD-Rs. Some CD-ROM drives have trouble with some (only some) CD-Rs.

Try another (newer) CD-ROM drive.

 

Is this one of those old 24X cdroms? I couldn't get office 2k to load on this ladies old 266 for love of money! She standing rite there too Then I hooked up a spare 50X I keep around & wow went rite along!! I sold her me spare cdrom also

 

the cd's are factory Microsoft issued pieces: Windows 98 full version and Office 2000. the Cd rom drive is only about 8 months old and a 56X AGI.
It was really weird as everything worked fine until about Christmas. I didn't install anything new or change anything, but when I went to install Microsoft wallet and Front Page Express, it wouldn't read the cd.
I then tried to have it read it under: my computer in explorer, but no luck still. I then inserted an audio cd as well as my installation cd for my modem and printer, all of which were read fine.
This one is a real good mystery!
Thanks for the help though...anything else?

 

Reading wierd cdrom

Did ya try & copy the office cd to a folder in explorer? You can "see" the drive in exploere rite? An easy test is to use someone elses comp & see if the cd works all the way through an install. If it does, but don't on yours, your laser lite is flickered on your cdrom

 

I can "see" the drive in Explorer, but it will not read the contents...
the cd's work fine in another computer and all cd's work in this drive except the win98 and office cd's...
my antivirus software discovered the JS.Exception.Exploit virus and deleted it today, but other than that, everything else works...
I even went back and installed every back up for the last 5 months with no fix to the problem.
A couple of these backups were made when I had another motherboard and processor in the case back in October.
When I updated the processor and motherboard in November, the CDrom drive worked perfectly as I had put in a 60gig harddrive at the same time and did a complete install on it...
There has got to be something in the registry or in windows that is preventing these cd's from being read....just got to find what...
any other suggestions?

 

Remove CD-Rom

Put it into another PC and try the same discs.

Its the only real way to prove the drive and the PC, but my guess is its the drive itself starting to go, or theres a conflict/error of some sort on the ide channel.

Come to think of it, try the drive as secondary master by itself as well....

 

Tried the disks in another puter...worked fine...tried drive in another puter...worked fine...switched drive location on IDE's...no difference...copied driver off of other puter...no difference...other puter was a clone of this one's drive 2 months ago...reformatted hard drive and tried to reinstall, but not read drive contents still...what the ???? any other suggestions?

 

mainboard

This only leaves the mainboard then, eh?

 

Different drive.

Have you tried a different cd-rom drive with those discs in this machine? You seem apt technically, so I'm assuming you were setting drive identities up ok etc.

Is the drive on with an ata 66 or higher device, regardless of ata 66 + ide cable or not and did you try a different ide cable?

Also, I doubt this is the problem, but make sure all ide sockets arent missing a pin, or have a bent pin. Dont worry about 1 missing pin near the middle, if you look at a female ide socket on a ribbon near the middle you'll see a hole blanked, thats just an orientation key.

If youve already covered these last questions then I'd have to concur its the board.

 

This should further the problem:
Switched cables with no effect..
put in another cdrom drive, a 24x as the master...same problem, so it's not the drive...switched it to a slave with no difference...
put it as a slave with the 56x as the master on the IDE 2 cable and can now read all cd's in the 56x set up as f: drive, and e: drive is not visible or useable...
Weird huh?
24x as e: works same way as 56x as e:,
56x as master f: reads all with 24x as e:, e: not accessible
24x as master f: reads all with 56x as e:, e: not accessible
Something is disableing e: from reading these 2 microsoft cd's...the only question is what?
I was able to re-install windows with no change...
please elaborate on the ata 66 issue...
Thanks

 

ata/66

The ATA/66 is just a spec for the newer hard drives access speed. cdrom's mostly use pio mode with DMA checked to access dynamic memory block on a specific channel, ie; dma 1,2,3, etc. ATA/66 ribbons/cable have 80 wires & run ATA/66 thru ATA/133 & are backwards compat........now, ah
You say you started with a clean formated hard drive, fdisk/partition/format? Tried to install windows & it never got completly installed? If not this is the last chance to (extreme tho) to test the cdrom outa windows. I'm thinkin' it's mainboard or last drive asigned is lower then the number of drives you have in devicman,.........

 

finally figured it out :
missed a registry entry
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
NoDriveTypeAutoRun = 0x00000095
had found the other 2 I first listed but found out about the third by reading Q155217 at Microsoft Product Support
Works fine now!
Thanks for everyone's assistence!
Peace...

 

registry

Now raise your right hand & repeat after me, "I promise never.............