CD ROM Not Accessible...help w/removing IDE

[Noelle]

Hi,

My CD ROM is not accessible, device is not ready error problem. At my wit's end here. I have disconnected the ribbon and power supply to trick my system into detecting the drive all over again...didn't work. I did a bootdisk and it doesn't work. I removed the program that made this happen with no luck. I read an old post about this and someone said to remove the IDE. Can someone help me with that? Clueless here on that one.

Thanks! :confused:

[Spider]

Noelle.

You need to go to...

control panel/system/device manager(tab)/CDROM(in the list)

Click on the little box with the + sign in it to open and see all devices.

Highlight (one click) the one your having problems with, click the remove button and say ok to any other questions asked after you click remove. Reboot the computer and Windows will auto-detect and install a new driver and all should be ok from there.

[ 17 November 2001: Message edited by: Spider ]

[Noelle]

Hi,

Thanks, but it didn't work. I don't know what to do with it already. Any other suggestions?

Noelle :eek:

[Spider]

Originally posted by Noelle:
it didn't work.

I get the feeling this is an older CR-ROM.

What speed is the CD-ROM? Also could you post what version of
Windows you are running and the type of CPU (Pentium, Celeron, etc.)
as well as the speed of the CPU (eg; 233MHz)?

*other things I can think of*
Did you add a hard drive or CD-RW recently?
Did someone else have the cover off of the tower recently?
Did the jumper on the rear of the device get changed (master/slave)?

If this is an old CD-ROM chances are it is broken and not fixable.

[Noelle]

Hi,

I don't know the speed of the driver but it is considered old. We bought the system in 1998 new. It's got Pentium II. Yes, I did install a new hard drive about 6 months or so ago. It worked fine until recently. I went to install a game for my son when this occured. I removed all his games since then thinking it was the problem. The tower cover has been removed also. It's actually off right now as I left it at my sister's house accidentally. The Jumper did not get changed however. The drive isn't dead....I installed it into my sister's system and it worked great. I tried hers in mine too and it did work so it's my system more than my drive.

Thanks for all the help!

Noelle

[Noelle]

One more thing....I still have the old hard drive. I switched it back and the cd rom didn't work for that one either. Since then, I thought (stupidly) that if I format my old drive that it will install windows all over again and then I can just transfer any pertinent info but it won't work because the drive isn't working. Can't load windows without the cd rom.

[Spider]

I went to install a game for my son when this occured Ah ha.

Game installers are sometimes written by extraterrestrials with malice
in mind.

It sounds like the game has over written some *.vxd(drivers) or *.dll
(dynamic link library). Usually Windows prompts(pops up a little warning)
you when an installer is trying to overwrite/replace a file in the O/S(operating
system/Windows).

There are a few ways to regain your CD-ROM. I'm thinking you're probably
best off cleaning the hard drive of everything, but first it's worth trying a
reinstall of Windows.

Put in your Windows CD and select to reinstall it. If after that still no CD
still, you need to make a boot floppy and stuff so post back if you want
those steps.

[Noelle]

Ok, when I reinsall windows, will I lose all my info?

Next, how do I reinstall windows? Sounds lame yes, but I am not that good with computers as you can probably see.

Thanks for helping me!

[Spider]

Originally posted by Noelle:
Ok, when I reinsall windows, will I lose all my info?
No, Microsoft isn't that mean.

Next, how do I reinstall windows?
You need to make a boot floopy and see if your CD will work from there.

You'll need a floppy disk for this...stick it in the floppy drive.
Control Panel/Add\Remove Programs/Startup Disk(tab)/Create Disk(button).

Making the startup disk it will enable you to be able to use the CD-ROM (hopefully).
After making the floppy disk make sure you open the tab (http://www.compume.com/configure/storage/default.asp?c=2&sec=4) so it can't be written to.

Leave the floppy in the computer and shut down your computer. Restart and the
computer will start off of the floppy disk instead of booting up(starting) into
Windows.

You will be asked (pretty quickly) DO YOU WANT CD SUPPORT,
select 1 (or start computer with CD-ROM support)
the floppy will take care of the rest.
Eventually (floppies are slow) it will be done and you'll have a black screen with the cursor flashing at A:\>_

Stick in your Windows CD and wait till it stops making noise (spinning/little light goes out).
Type at the prompt d: and if the prompt doesn't change to D:\>_
try typing cd d:

Once you have the prompt showing D:\>_ type setup
Wait for the Windows install interface(the clouds thing) and you'll
be able to figure out the rest from there.

Post back if making the floppy and booting(starting the computer) into it
doesn't work.

[ 18 November 2001: Message edited by: Spider ]

[Noelle]

Hi,

Not having good luck. I get to the A:\ and I change it to the d: and I get "CDR101: not ready reading drive"

I then tried it with my old hard drive that is formatted and blank and got the same thing.

[Spider]

Originally posted by Noelle:
I get to the A:\ and I change it to the d: and I get "CDR101: not ready reading drive

Couple of other things you can try while you have the floppy handy...

At the A:\ try...
e:
f:
g:
h:

If none of those work...well next is to go into the BIOS (preboot) but
that gets a little deeper and these days everybody's BIOS menus are
different so I would ask first...

1.
Did your son (or anyone else) attempt to fix this problem, caused by
the game install, and try "things" on your computer? If so then BIOS
settings might have been altered.

2.
Next question, are you aware of what "master" and "slave" mean
when talking about "jumpers" on an IDE device(your CD-ROM)?

3.
Have you got another ribbon(flat,wide,connector on the back of the
CD-ROM) to try, sometimes they fail.


------------------------------- just yakking ---------------------------------------------
It's beginning to look like you need to take the tower to a tech.
Probs like this are hard to try and fix with words only.

The most puzzling parts are you said the CD-ROM worked in another machine,
and the prob started after a bad game install. This is usually a simple fix unless
someone else has attempted "things" to try and fix it.

That floppy you made gets a default CD-ROM driver installed on it by WindowsXX.
It will always make a good CD-ROM operate. Weird.

[Noelle]

Well, my son is 3 years old. I was the one to install his game. No, no one else besides what I have done with you have touched my machine except when I took it to my sisters to check the drive but that's all that was done.

Next, I do know what master and slave are....and do have another ribbon I can try. Will do that ASAP.

I'll try that and if if fails, I will take it to be fixed. Thanks for all your help. I certainly feel like I gave it my best shot thanks to you!

[Dodge]

I may have missed something in all the post above. But, back to the basics here.

Is there a CD in the Drive?

If so then have you tried a different CD?

The main causes of this error are The CD is dirty or Corrupted....

Also, you may want to go into the Registry. Start/Run/type regedit At the top look for Edit, Find... Then type in the following one at a time and delete any reference you find to these..

BADIDE
BAD_IDE
NOIDE
NO_IDE
If any of these are listed, delete them, then reboot the PC. See if your Cdrom is accessible then.

[Noelle]

Hi,

Well, I got the drive working!!!! I took it in with me to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents home. My nephew was there who's in college for computers and he got it working! He ran McAfee virus software and it fixed it for me! The drive is back! He said sometimes games can change the configuration and the system thinks there's a virus. I don't know....but it worked!

Thanks for all the help!

[Spider]

Originally posted by Noelle:
Well, I got the drive working!!!! I took it in with me to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents home. My nephew was there who's in college for computers and he got it working!Thanks for all the help!
Good to hear. Sometimes these glitches need a person with a little
more know-how.
Thanks for all the help!
Well you also get an A for being diligent and resourceful, you
didn't give up and that is a good thing. Congrats!
It's also great that you posted back and let people, here, know the outcome.

[ 25 November 2001: Message edited by: Spider ]