burned out dvd drive

[LOLL]

Recently the dvd drive in my HP media center PC started to get noisy when
booting windows, instead of the usual spinning sound it began making a noisy
humming sound. Now apparently it is burned out and wont do anything even the
disc door wont open. To complicate the matter windows also has stopped
working (wont start).
My question is could a burned out dvd player prevent windows from starting
also?

 

[Nate Grossman]

Recently the dvd drive in my HP media center PC started to get noisy when
booting windows, instead of the usual spinning sound it began making a noisy
humming sound. Now apparently it is burned out and wont do anything even the
disc door wont open. To complicate the matter windows also has stopped
working (wont start).
My question is could a burned out dvd player prevent windows from starting
also?

Not in my experience. You should just disconnect it and see if that
helps. Probably won't.

 

[Paul]

Recently the dvd drive in my HP media center PC started to get noisy when
booting windows, instead of the usual spinning sound it began making a noisy
humming sound. Now apparently it is burned out and wont do anything even the
disc door wont open. To complicate the matter windows also has stopped
working (wont start).
My question is could a burned out dvd player prevent windows from starting
also?

If it shares a ribbon cable with your IDE boot drive, yes.

The ribbon cable is a shared bus, with up to two IDE devices
connected to the same cable. A fault on one device,
can prevent the host and remaining device, from doing
their normal duties.

Disconnect the defective device, and verify the jumpering is
correct for the remaining device. When a single device is
connected to a ribbon cable, it should be connected to the
end connector, not the middle one. You fill the end connector
first, and the middle one is used, only if the end connector
is not available.

If the devices were all SATA, it would be less likely to
cause a problem. That is because SATA ports don't share with
one another. Each drive in that case, gets a separate cable.

Paul