cd-rom problem

[Guest]

I recently upgraded to XP on my PC that used to have Windows 98SE. The only
problem I had was that the sound card didn't work, and I determined that it
needed a proper driver for XP to work.
After searching the Internet, and finding some drivers that I thought might
work with the sound card, I downloaded one that I thought would work, but a
major error was encountered, and after that, the cd-rom drive wouldn't work.
Apparently the driver for it was corrupted, because I get a message to that
effect when I try to re-install the cd-rom drive.
I would like to just re-install Windows XP, but how can I do that if the
drive won't run? I put the disk in, but nothing happens. When the PC first
boots up, it recognizes the cd-rom drive, but it doesn't show up in Windows
Explorer as the D: drive.
I tried downloading drivers from some Internet sites, but I get these DOS
programs for installing them, and they never work. (I know very little about
DOS).

Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jim]

Does the drive show up in device manager? Click Start/ run/ devmgmt.msc/
ok.Do you have another optical drive? You can set that drive to start first
to boot from the cd in setup /bios. Look in your computer/mother board
manual too se how it's done.
You can also take a look at this.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320553#kb1