CD-RW gone!

  • Thread starter Thread starter the staring frogs of Southern Iberia
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the staring frogs of Southern Iberia

My box at home with XP home has mysteriously lost it's CD-RW. It's not
present in Device manager so that I can even uninstall it. I've downloaded
Belarc advisor and run it and it doesn't show there either, just the HD and
the floppy drive. Cracked the case just to make sure I wasn't dreaming the
CD wasn't there. It's there along with the proper ribbon cable and power
cable, both seated as far as I can tell.
Where do I start to reinstall the CD-RW drive which is a Samsung
240B? I'd prefer not to do a system restore since I just finished a 11MB
download on dialup.
 
the staring frogs of Southern Iberia said:
My box at home with XP home has mysteriously lost it's CD-RW. It's not
present in Device manager so that I can even uninstall it. I've downloaded
Belarc advisor and run it and it doesn't show there either, just the HD and
the floppy drive. Cracked the case just to make sure I wasn't dreaming the
CD wasn't there. It's there along with the proper ribbon cable and power
cable, both seated as far as I can tell.
Where do I start to reinstall the CD-RW drive which is a Samsung
240B? I'd prefer not to do a system restore since I just finished a 11MB
download on dialup.
Click to expand...

Move the downloaded file to a folder that won't be affected by System restore (like creating your own outside of Documents and Settings. Anyway, try this reg file after (if you can deleting the CD drive from the Device Manager;
http://www.aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip

unzip it, and run it, reboot, and let XP find the device again. You may want to check if there is updated firmware for your CD drive from the manufacturer's website (or your install disk).
 
That fix is generally for if the CD-RW is missing from Explorer, not the
Device Manager.

--
All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com



the staring frogs of Southern Iberia said:
My box at home with XP home has mysteriously lost it's CD-RW. It's not
present in Device manager so that I can even uninstall it. I've downloaded
Belarc advisor and run it and it doesn't show there either, just the HD
and
the floppy drive. Cracked the case just to make sure I wasn't dreaming the
CD wasn't there. It's there along with the proper ribbon cable and power
cable, both seated as far as I can tell.
Where do I start to reinstall the CD-RW drive which is a Samsung
240B? I'd prefer not to do a system restore since I just finished a 11MB
download on dialup.
Click to expand...

Move the downloaded file to a folder that won't be affected by System
restore (like creating your own outside of Documents and Settings. Anyway,
try this reg file after (if you can deleting the CD drive from the Device
Manager;
http://www.aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip

unzip it, and run it, reboot, and let XP find the device again. You may want
to check if there is updated firmware for your CD drive from the
manufacturer's website (or your install disk).
 
My box at home with XP home has mysteriously lost it's CD-RW. It's not
present in Device manager so that I can even uninstall it. I've downloaded
Belarc advisor and run it and it doesn't show there either, just the HD and
the floppy drive. Cracked the case just to make sure I wasn't dreaming the
CD wasn't there. It's there along with the proper ribbon cable and power
cable, both seated as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

Probably a driver type file associated with burning software has gone
AWOL, leaving an orphan entry in registry. To tidy up, get a registry
patch file, cdgone.reg, from www.aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip, extract
it, r-click on it and merge it into the registry and reboot

You will then need to reinstall any burning software that you use.
 
Because I misread the post. If it's missing from Device Manager as well,
then the first place to check is the BIOS to see if it is detected there. If
it is, then the problem is in Windows. If not, then it is a hardware
detection issue - possibly a cable needs to be replaced, or the motherboard
has a problem. Could also be that the drive is "dead".

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Really, then why did Rick and Alex offer the very same reg hack?
 
Thanks for the suggestions so far. Have searched high and wide through the
night in MS KB, Emachines, and Samsung for any help possible. No joy so far
but will try suggested fixes. I hate when this happens.
:)
 
Well, he hinted that he checked the connections. Maybe he should unseat them also, check the connectors to see if they are intact, if they are, retry reseating them, then reset the BIOS again before rebooting. If that doesn't work, then maybe the drive is gone. But that reg hack does work at removing any munged reference of the device from the registry.
 
the staring frogs of Southern Iberia said:
Thanks for the suggestions so far. Have searched high and wide through the
night in MS KB, Emachines, and Samsung for any help possible. No joy so far
but will try suggested fixes. I hate when this happens.
:)
Click to expand...

Do you have another drive you can use for testing pruposes (e.g. one in a second bay possibly), or one you can borrow?
 
Are you refering to a CD drive or a floppy drive? I only have one CD drive
available. MS KB #310751 has been looked at but would the CD-RW be set up on
the primary IDE , secondary IDE or bus master IDE channel.
Am about to head into the bios to see if the drive is recognized
there. Got to figure out first if this is a hardware problem or a windows
problem.
I getting pretty tired. Considering a system restore but not sure what
I would lose in terms of apps or ISP info, etc.
 
Just found an old CD ROM from Lite ON downstairs from last computer. Think
it had Win 95 on it. Must have since it was a Packard Hell. Should I plug
that in? Power supply in new box is 350 watts I think. Suppose it'll blow
the crap out of this old drive? Doesn't matter anyway since it was
downstairs for 5 years and don't plan on using it.
Jumper on back is set on master. Leave it there?
 
the staring frogs of Southern Iberia said:
Just found an old CD ROM from Lite ON downstairs from last computer. Think
it had Win 95 on it. Must have since it was a Packard Hell. Should I plug
that in? Power supply in new box is 350 watts I think. Suppose it'll blow
the crap out of this old drive? Doesn't matter anyway since it was
downstairs for 5 years and don't plan on using it.
Jumper on back is set on master. Leave it there?
Click to expand...

Yes, as long as that is the only drive there afterwards. Be sure to unplug the tower's power, and touch the metal casing to remove any residual charge that may be left behind. You mat fry something more than just the CD drive.
 
Plugged in the CD drive from lite on. Nothing! Plug and play didn't
recognize it.
The BIOS is set up as first boot=CDrom
second boot=floppy
third boot=HDD
boot other device= enabled

I also downloaded and merged the reg file from aumha.org. Nothing.

Bad ribbon cable?
The unit is getting power since the door opens when button is pushed.

If it was dirty wouldn't Windows still recognize it?
 
Couldn't tell you what happened but drive is back. It's listed in
Windows explorer, device manager(as a Saosung R/RW/ SW240B) and shows up in
My Computer as an Audio CD D:/
Reseated ribbon cable at both ends and compressed aired the drive
bay. Only software change I think I did was to dump ZA (it was pissing me
off) and restart ICF through MSconfig. That couldn't possibly have had
anything to do with it?
In any case I'm about to create a known good restore point after I
check on the drive functions ie;
rip, burn and play.
You know the box at the office, an old 486 with Win 3.1 doesn't have
any of these problems. Course it doesn't really do much either. :)
 
the staring frogs of Southern Iberia said:
Couldn't tell you what happened but drive is back. It's listed in
Windows explorer, device manager(as a Saosung R/RW/ SW240B) and shows up in
My Computer as an Audio CD D:/
Reseated ribbon cable at both ends and compressed aired the drive
bay. Only software change I think I did was to dump ZA (it was pissing me
off) and restart ICF through MSconfig. That couldn't possibly have had
anything to do with it?
In any case I'm about to create a known good restore point after I
check on the drive functions ie;
rip, burn and play.
You know the box at the office, an old 486 with Win 3.1 doesn't have
any of these problems. Course it doesn't really do much either. :)
Click to expand...

It may have simply become unseated, and after you removed and cleaned it out, that may have done it. ZA will not have anything to do with that at all. I would recommend keeping it, or at least a firewall running anyway. In any event, I am glad you have it sorted. Also System restore will only work for so long with creating points, as they disappear after a time. it would be ebst to just simply back up the registry concerning the drive.
 
My box at home with XP home has mysteriously lost it's CD-RW. It's not
present in Device manager so that I can even uninstall it. I've downloaded
Belarc advisor and run it and it doesn't show there either, just the HD and
the floppy drive. Cracked the case just to make sure I wasn't dreaming the
CD wasn't there. It's there along with the proper ribbon cable and power
cable, both seated as far as I can tell.
Where do I start to reinstall the CD-RW drive which is a Samsung
240B? I'd prefer not to do a system restore since I just finished a 11MB
download on dialup.
Click to expand...

In addition to everyone else's replies:

Are you quite sure it's a Windows problem? Does the system find it
when you boot up? Check in your BIOS in IDE settings and see if all
your drives are being reported. If it's not visible in BIOS, then you
have bigger problems than Windows - probably hardware failure, which
happens.
 
NobodyMan said:
In addition to everyone else's replies:

Are you quite sure it's a Windows problem? Does the system find it
when you boot up? Check in your BIOS in IDE settings and see if all
your drives are being reported. If it's not visible in BIOS, then you
have bigger problems than Windows - probably hardware failure, which
happens.
Click to expand...

Well, had you bothered to read the thread, you'd have seen that the problem was solved in his last post!

I say this in lieu of your comment, "In addition to everyone else's replies:" which hints that you read them, but obviously didn't.
 
I did open up the BIOS and the drive was being recognized. It was listed as
a CD ROM and it was the first boot device. I'm not really sure if removing
it and reinstalling it did the trick though. Since it happened again after
my last post. I also changed some settings in MSCONFIG because I had
disabled some startup items ( aim.exe, bigfix.exe and others ) that used to
drive me bananas when the box booted up. Damn kids!
After enabling all in MSCONFIG it appears to be 90% ok now however
it will not find some setup files on an installation CD for an Ipod Mini. I
dread the thought of d'loading a 39 MB file from Apple but if I can't get
this to recognize the setup.exe on the disk that's my only option.
Can't wait for Verizon to get here with DSL.
What's the lifespan typically of a CD drive? This one's about two
years old with plenty of use.
 
Well, had you bothered to read the thread, you'd have seen that the problem was solved in his last post!

I say this in lieu of your comment, "In addition to everyone else's replies:" which hints that you read them, but obviously didn't.
Click to expand...

I did read all the posts, smart-ass. Nowhere in the thread I read was
there any mention of resolution.

Perhaps that post hadn't caught up to the server I use? Had you
thought about that? Or did you just shoot from the hip?
 

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