Win XP reports no floppy & no CD??????

[Stan Kay]

I have just upgraded my Win XP Pro installation to SP2 and everything worked
fine after re-booting until I noticed that Explorer does not show my floppy
drive or DVD drive nor do these devices appear in Device Manager. I have
tried rebooting to see if the system identifies them but this does not work.
I have even done an iupgrade re-instal of windows but that does not help
either.

Can anyone please offer some suggestions before I resort to clean instal?

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Check in the BIOS set up to see if the floppy drive is enabled.

Also check to see if the IDE/SATA channel is enabled in the BIOS so that XP
can find the DVD drive.

 

[Stan Kay]

That was the first thing I did when Windows failed to show the floppy and
the DVD drive. Bios shows that both exist and both appear correctly during
POST. Moreover, if I insert a bootable floppy of a bootable CD/DVD then
both work during boot up!

In essence, the problems is with Windows XP Pro SP2 not recognising that the
removable drives exist. The real interesting thing is that both devices are
present in Windows registry but Windows still does not recognise them!

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Stan.

Does the CD/DVD drive show up in Disk Management?

Are you using TweakUI? That offers a setting to not display specific
drives; some users (including myself) have used this and then forgotten we
did it. <blush> They should still show up in Device Manager, though.

RC

 

[Stan Kay]

Hi RC,

Neither the floppy nor the CD/DVD show up in Disk Management and I do not,
and have never, used TweakUI. But thank you for the suggestion. I have
also been told via another source that Nero often conflicts with Adaptec to
cause exactly this problem. However, altough I do have Adaptec products
(SCSI controller and drives only) I do not have Nero and so that cannot be
the cause of the problem either.

I shall continue to search and will post back a solution if I find one.
However, a complete re-install takes about a day (operating system and all
software etc) so if I have no solution by tomorrow then I will perform a
clean instal of Windows.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Stan.

Adaptec SCSI? Me, too. But my only remaining SCSI device is my IBM HD (a
humongous <g> 9 GB model), which is my boot device. My first several
CD-ROMs were SCSI, but both current DVDs are IDE models.

My first reaction when I saw your mention of SCSI was that you might have
the CD disabled in the SCSI BIOS, but then I remembered that you earlier
said that it appears during POST, so there goes that idea. Besides, if I
read your last post correctly, your CD is an IDE device, not SCSI.

The floppy is not supposed to show up in Disk Management, but there should
be two lines in Device Manager, one for the FDD controller and one for the
drive.

The CD/DVD definitely should show up in both Device Manager and Disk
Management. Sometimes a new HDD needs to be "initialized", but this should
not apply to the CD/DVD. Sometimes I'm startled when I open Disk Management
and don't see all of my CDs, but then I realize that I just need to scroll
down. With my many HD volumes, flash drive, etc., the Graphical View
sometimes is too large to show without scrolling.

If you must reinstall, you might want to do an "in-place upgrade". This
will reinstall WinXP itself, but preserve your existing applications and
data. If your WinXP CD-ROM does not include SP2, you'll need to add that
after the reinstallation. Still, this should cut your reinstallation time
from a full day to less than a half-day, maybe a couple of hours.
Microsoft's instructions are in this KB article:
How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341

Keep us posted on your progress. I haven't seen this problem reported
before.

RC

 

[Stan Kay]

Hi RC,

I have now tried an "in place upgrade" but that failed to too. As a result
of all my failed attempts I concluded ( just a wild guess!) that there must
be a driver conflict causing this problem so decided to see what effect
there was from removing applications one by one and re-booting. Eventually,
I found that removing Alcohol 120 fixed the problem. Subseqeuntly, a visit
to the forums on the Alcohol web site revealed that this is is registered as
a problem when Adaptec products are present. I discovered that the key is
to install Alcohol 120 AFTER everything else is installed. During the
Alcohol installation process up pops a message that Windows has found a new
SCSI device (i.e. Alcohol has over written the driver but Windows then
identifies the SCSI controller again and re-instals the drivers). The
Alcohol installation process then pauses whilst the SCSI driver
re-installation takes place and then completes it's installation.
Subseqeuntly everything works fine.

So, many thanks to everyone who has offered help and I hope my experiences
and solution may be of value to others.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Stan.

Thanks for the report back. Congratulations on your success! ;<)

That's one I never would have figured out because I know nothing at all
about Alcohol, although I have heard the name a couple of times. I'm glad
your process of elimination finally uncovered the problem.

Now, Enjoy WinXP! ;<)

RC