Lost ? Cd Rom drive

I am working on a computer that I got from work so my daughter can use it.
However, I have a problem. The computer is not finding the CDROM drive. I have tried everything I can think of.
The computer was nuked at work to get rid of all the company information. However the CDROM drive did not work even at work (they were afraid of virus').
The OS that was originally on the system was WIN95. I can just boot to command prompt now.
An suggestions on getting the CDROM drive recognized by the system?

I have even tried a win 98 boot disk. Nothing works yet.

Thanks,

Len

 

lenq

First though, how about the power and cabling to the CD drive? Get a power light? Drawer open and close?

BIOS have proper stuff enabled? Do you get POST at boot up?

Did you do f-disk and format yet? I think that is the place to start.

 

first things first

I have checked all the cabling and power supply. Everything is hooked up. The light comes on (briefly) at reboot. The tray opens and shuts.

When I boot up it starts to load, then goes to a prompt screen wanting to know which driver to use for the cdrom. 5 different options.
1. nec ide cdrom driver
2. toshiba " "
3. ? dvdrom "
4. ? cd rom "
5. No cdrom support

I have tried all these options. The computer is an NEC. Options2-4 give me error codes saying that the CDROM drive cannot be located.
>>>>>>>>>

 

...continued

Option 1 seems to load and takes me the command prompt. I try to change to the CDROM drive and I get an invalid drive message.
Option 5 also loads with no additional error codes than option 1.
I Unformatted the c:\ drive in hopes to find the driver (if that was in fact the problem).
While playing in a couple of directories, I got this message in reference to opening the cdrom drive (sorry i dont remember which file): FILE MISSING C:\DOS\TAISATAP.SYS Then I get right under that ERROR IN CONFIG.SYS LINE
I checked the CONFIG.SYS but do not see anything out of the ordinary. My next stop was to reformat the hard drive or fdisk.
What would be your suggestion?? point me in the right direction also.

Len

 

Oh Yea

By the way, I cannot get to a POST or BIOS setup screen. I have tried F1 at startup, F5, Tab, then became the mad bomber and started trying everything. Shift F8 seems to go to a confirmation of load programs. But nothing gets me to POST or BIOS.

Len

 

Chances are that if they were afraid of 'viruses' throught the cd-rom as you say, that they turned off the drive in the BIOS. Placed I worked at did this as well - stopped the gamers from loading their **** on the system.

Other ways to get into the BIOS include DEL, or F10 on some systems.

Any indication of who manufacturered the motherboard? The reputable ones put there names on the board. Also when you start what the screen for the version of BIOS usually , AMI, Aladdin or Phoenix. Also just after the listing of the bios is usually a prompt that says press <....> for setup. There's no indication of this?

 

Other thought:

When the computer starts and lists the drives it detected does the screen show the CD ROM? If it doesn't then the BIOS is where you need to be. Nothing you do in 98, 95 or DOS will help you.

Get us as much as you can on the maker of the mboard and well see if we can track this down for you.

Gary

 

Thats the rub. It doesn't even get that far. Another curious item to mention. Every time I reboot the computer my keyboard changes ports. It will start in the keyboard port, then I reboot it won't work unless I put it into the mouse port (keyboard is ps2, mouse is USB).

I tried finding out the manufacturer. No names are embossed or stamped onto the m'board. However I did find a BIOS jumper configuration. That has a recovery setting as well as a normal and configuration setting. It was already on the config setting so I am going to take the jumper off(recovery setting) and see what happens.

I will let you know.

Len

 

Well, I tried the BIOS jumper set to "Recover ". The only thing it did was not power up my monitor OR my keyboard. I was able to see the POST screen for a moment. It did read the CDROM. I got the following:
ATAPI IDE CD-ROM device driver version V.1.55 Mitsumi Electric 1 Drive(s) detected Unit 0, Master, IRQ 15, I/O address 0x0170.

then c:\>
type in d:\
it changes to drive d:\>
type dir, then -> not ready reading drive abort, retry, fail

I think the reason for me not being able to get to BIOS is the keyboard jumping around. (I set the BIOS jumper back to "normal ".) It is not allowing me enough time to get the keyboard plugged in to allow any input before the option to get to the POST or BIOS screen goes away.

Len (still havent given up yet)