cdrom won't work after windowsxp gaff

We have a dell8100 with windows me purchased 8 mos ago. Got the upgrade to xp, and even after lots of advise not to, we installed it. It basically messed up everything, so we uninstalled it. Since then, the cd rom won't work. The drawer opens & receives the cd, but no spinning and nothing on the screen. Help!

 

go clean Jane

Do a clean install & you will love winxp provided you have a least 128 mb ram, & 300 cpu. Boot up & save your files on cdburner or diskettes. How to with xp upgrade? Boot to cdrom in bios=first device cdrom, floppy, c, other save/exit when ask if you want a new copy or repair present copy click NEW. It will format the drive. When ask for upgrade windows verifier place the win me in the cdrom & point to the drive, ok, continue copy files, etc. replace the me with xp in cdrom. After all is installed enter bios, change first boot device back to=c, floppy,cdrom save/exit be happy

 

i cleaned; didn't work

rancher:

i followed the process you described. probably should've registered on this board as a novice user. finally figured out bios, and updated, but no option on new or other cd. what if i uninstall windows me? i don't want to call dell tech support if i can avoid it. thanks again for whatever help you or anyone else can provide.

 

A quick warning here, unless you have a Windows ME CD don't format for a clean install. When Windows XP asks for verification of an earlier version of Windows you would need to insert the Win ME CD it won't accept a recovery disk like you normally get with a Dell.

If you have access to a Windows CD (98 or ME) for it to refer to then by all means do a clean install, but you may want to go to Dells website and get the right drivers for everything first.

 

rite on

That's right Kevin, I believe even win 95 as a referance OS.
Jane what do you uninstall ME? I thought you said you reformated? Your cdrom works rite? Your XP is HOME upgrade rite?

 

cd rom not reading

I too have a problem with my cdrw giving up on reading any discs at all. I had it serviced by HP and they replaced my hard drive. The cdrw (Mitsumi CR-4845TE) read a couple of discs and then failed again.
It ejects and closes, flashes the light a few times on front, and then nothing! Is this a faulty motherboard, IDE Cable, or incorrect BIOS setup (BTW= my BIOS revision was done on 9/11/01...strange).

Any info would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

 

Gary3072

I looked for this burner & beleive it's an O_E_M. Is your warranty still good? If so demand a new one. Those oem's are rarely flashable for firmware

 

CDR not reading discs

Rancher,
I actually got my complete refund from where I bought it and went for a Dell Dimension...much better setup.