R. C. White said:
Hi, Nick.
Don't reformat for this problem. It's unnecessary - and probably wouldn't
cure this anyhow. You MAY want to reformat for other reasons, and I'll
discuss that later.
First things first: let's get your DVD drives working. Did one or both of
these come pre-installed in your computer? If so, you really should be
discussing this with Dell.
The information you've given is good but, as Jerry Seinfeld would say,
you've yada-yadaed over the best parts! So far, all we know is that it is
an anonymous Dell running WinXP SP2. We don't even know if this is a laptop
or (more likely) a desktop, or if it is brand new or running a 5-year-old
BIOS, or if it came with WinXP pre-installed, or has been upgraded from
Win9x/ME - or something else. :>(
Have these DVD drives ever worked? In this computer? Did you install them
yourself? Are they internal or external? IDE interface, or USB or
Firewire? If IDE, are they installed as primary or secondary; master or
slave?
Why do you think you "have a virus that caused this problem"? Viruses can
cause a lot of problems, but lots of problems have nothing to do with
viruses. You have been practicing "safe hex" and a virus check turns up
nothing, so there is no reason to suspect a virus is causing your DVD
problem.
Can you completely disconnect both these drives? Use Device Manager to
Uninstall them, then shut down the computer and unplug them. Then reboot
WinXP at least once to let it "clear its head" and forget that it ever had
DVDs. Then shut down, plug in one of them, and boot again. Does WinXP
detect the drive and automatically install the drivers for it? What do you
see as WinXP boots? Does the drive show up in My Computer now? What does
Disk Management say about it? If the first drive works, shut down and
connect the second and boot again. If they are both working, report back so
that we know how to help the next person with a similar problem. If they
still don't work, report back and tell us just what you did and what results
you saw. ("I tried everything" doesn't tell us much; "Didn't work" doesn't
tell us much, either.)
Remember, you can see your computer; we can't. ALL we know about it is what
you tell us.
Now, about reformatting...For a "generic" computer, booting from the WinXP
CD-ROM lets us repartition and/or reformat and get a clean start. For a
Dell (and many other OEM models), you may have received only a Recovery Disk
which restores the computer to the way it left the factory, discarding all
your applications and data in the process. Do you have a CD that will allow
you to reformat?
Why reformat? The symptoms you've described don't seem to be the kind that
would require - or be cured by - a reformat. You say that you "have wanted
to reformat for a while but never have", but you don't say why. Surely not
just for the fun of it. Reformatting will wipe the hard drive volume clean
and recreate the empty clusters and sectors to let you start fresh. In the
process, WinXP disappears, along with all the applications (Word, Quicken,
games, etc.) that you have installed, and all your data (letters, financial
records, pictures, etc.) that you have stored there. Before the reformat,
be sure to back up any irreplaceable data files. Don't bother to backup the
applications; you will need to reinstall them later from their original CDs
or other media. Don't bother to backup Windows, because you'll have to
reinstall that from the CD, too. After the reformat, you'll need to
reinstall Windows, then reinstall your applications, then restore your data
from backup. It's a LOT of work! And it might not help your problem at
all.
I've asked you for a lot of information. We probably don't need it all, but
without seeing your computer, we don't know what we don't need. When you
tell us more about your computer, we will be better able to help you.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Ha, sorry about that. Let me get more specific
. Every part that I have on
my computer is from Dell and has been preinstalled by them, about 2 years
ago. Its a Dell Dimension 8250 P4 2.4 GHZ desktop with 512 MB of RAM. Like
I said, it was installed with Windows XP and I've made no changes to any
hardware inside it. They are both internal drives. I assume they are
primary drives because I've never had secondary drives or anything else
installed on the computer..however I'm unfamiliar with those terms so I might
be completely wrong.
I'm beginning to agree that it's probably not a virus, but rather some
stupid error I made by using a friends program which caused some kind of
driver error. Also, my kids do download a lot of things that I try to keep up
on but may have been infected with a virus or something.
I've had very little problems overall with the computer. I had installed a
Nero CD burner program recently and that was the first time I noticed the
problem. However I uninstalled it immediately because I saw that as the
conflict. I dont have specifics on the program name for a reason I'd rather
not discuss here
, however, I could ask my neighbor...
. Perhaps the disc
was faulty and the cause of my problem. Hopefully not
.
I do have a Dell Resource Disk labeled: "Reinstallation CD Microsoft Windows
XP Home Edition Including Service Pack 1". The reason I have wanted to
reformat is because of the amount of space that is taken up on my hard drive
that I cant seem to locate. What I mean is, I uninstall programs, delete most
songs from my children's documents, use Disk Clean up, clear IE cache, search
through some areas of the hard drive to remove things I KNOW is okay to, and
everything still seems quite cluttered and full. I'm at 70 GB out of 120 GB
and I'd just like the computer to perform as it did when I first got it. I've
used msconfig and programs to clean things up but again I can never get rid
of the feeling of how..cluttered (perhaps not the best term) everything is. I
feel like if I just reformat I can start from scratch and monitor downloads
better. I am aware that all documents, media, programs...everything is erased
when you reformat. Perhaps I shouldn't but it was just a thought I have had.
Hopefully that information will help a little bit.
