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Where are my optical drives?
The Dell Dimension 4700 with XP Home that I'm trying to refurbish has
a DVD reader and a CD writer, made in 2004, but neither show up in
Windows Explorer. Also with CMD, D: is not a valid drive.
But the lights on both drives blink on and off like they should at
system start up. First one, then the other, then iirc each one in turn
again.
I've wiggled the data connections, and I've removed the drives and
they are both set to CS, cable select. I thought I read in something
from Dell that one should be master and one slave but in the notes for
this particular computer, it says CS for both.
Looking in the BIOS, they aren't listed either, and I see no place to
turn them on. Although there is a line in the boot sequence list
that lists: internal or USB CD drives.
When I tried to boot from Hiren's Boot Disk, it worked in neither
interenal drive, but would work if I plugged into a USB port an
adaptor made by Rosewill with a CD drive plugged into that. (When
there is a USB drive plugged in, an entry for it appears in the boot
sequence list that shows up when one presses F12 during booting, and
it did with the external drive, but with just the two internal drives,
no such line in the boot list.)
I tried another old CD drive that worked a couple days ago, and it
blinks too, but doesn't show in windows Explorer.
Might it be the flat data cable? A broken mobo? Anything else?
The Dell Dimension 4700 with XP Home that I'm trying to refurbish has
a DVD reader and a CD writer, made in 2004, but neither show up in
Windows Explorer. Also with CMD, D: is not a valid drive.
But the lights on both drives blink on and off like they should at
system start up. First one, then the other, then iirc each one in turn
again.
I've wiggled the data connections, and I've removed the drives and
they are both set to CS, cable select. I thought I read in something
from Dell that one should be master and one slave but in the notes for
this particular computer, it says CS for both.
Looking in the BIOS, they aren't listed either, and I see no place to
turn them on. Although there is a line in the boot sequence list
that lists: internal or USB CD drives.
When I tried to boot from Hiren's Boot Disk, it worked in neither
interenal drive, but would work if I plugged into a USB port an
adaptor made by Rosewill with a CD drive plugged into that. (When
there is a USB drive plugged in, an entry for it appears in the boot
sequence list that shows up when one presses F12 during booting, and
it did with the external drive, but with just the two internal drives,
no such line in the boot list.)
I tried another old CD drive that worked a couple days ago, and it
blinks too, but doesn't show in windows Explorer.
Might it be the flat data cable? A broken mobo? Anything else?