XP won't recognize my floppy or CD-ROM drive

[Nick Cellino]

I can't get Windows XP to recognize my floppy or CD-ROM Drive. When I boot
to Safe Mode, both drives work perfectly so I know the drives are plugged in
properly and aren't defective but when in "Normal" Mode, I always get the
"Please insert a disk into Drive A" error message each time I try to open
the floppy and nothing appears when I open the CD-ROM drive.

Assuming I have a software conflict somewhere, I have run msconfig many
times, using selective start-ups to disable SYSTEM.INI, WIN.INI, Services
and Start-up programs but this hasn't helped to solve the problem. None of
the disabling attempts made the drives work so I haven't been able to narrow
down the source of the problem.

The only time the CD-ROM drive works, temporarily, is upon start-up if a
CD-ROM is inside the drive but as soon as I remove it and stick in another
CD-ROM, Windows fails to recognize it. The floppy never works except in Safe
Mode, as mentioned above. I have no viruses. Does anyone have any
suggestions that might help?

Thank you.

Nick Cellino

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Nick

How many diskettes have you tried?.. the diskette drive may be damaged.. re.
the CD drive, have you set it to 'autoplay' to see what happens?.. how old
are the drives?.. nothing lasts forever..

 

[Nick Cellino]

Thanks Mike but if the drives were damaged, they would not work perfectly in
Safe Mode. I believe I have finally solved the problem that has plagued me
for weeks.

I searched in Device Manger and found two !Conflicts buried in the System
Devices section. I "uninstalled" both of them, rebooted the computer and
both drives worked!