CD-ROM ceases functioning

Discussion in 'Storage Devices' started by Kyrandos, Dec 26, 2001.

  1. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    a few days ago, my cd-rom quite suddenly stopped working. At this point, I am not positive if it quits working while Im running windows 98, or before it boots up. What I mean by not working is that under my computer, the E: just.. does not appear. I can gain use of my cd-rom through use of a DOS boot diskette, and I even tried copying the MSCDEX commands into my config and autoexec files, which DID load up my cd-rom, however it would not autoplay files, nor recognize cd's actually being placed into the cd drive. I could insert the diskette for a game, and the drive would not read the cd label, but I could browse the files within. However, games wouldn't run as they 'could not detect the cd. Has anyone heard of a similar problem?
     
  2. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    A little update

    I've noticed that if I open my system properties and click the performance tab, it says
    File System: Some drives are using MS-DOS compatibility
    in addition, in the box tords the bottom I have these three entries:

    Compatibility-mode paging reduces overall system performance.
    Drive C is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system.
    Drive D is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system.

    I checked my registry for the noide value, as well as bad_ide and returned nothing. I figured this may have been a result of my loading the cd-rom through mscdex, but I removed those commands from the autoexec and config so that now my cd-rom doesnt get loaded at all

    FYI, Im running on Win98 first edition,
    8 gig Primary Master drive
    32X CD-ROM Primary Slave (not working)
    20 gig Secondary Master drive

    I changed to this configuration from the 8 gig as primary master and 20 gig as primary slave, with cd-rom floating in secondary slave. No change in results.
     
  3. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yet another observation - under system properties, there is no group called IDE / ATAPI controllers, the only controller I can find anywhere is under hard drive controllers, and it says "ALi M5229 PCI Bus Master IDE Controller" I removed it, and windows hung (presumably it couldnt communicate with the HD's) and so I rebooted, and it just reloaded that controller without a sweat.
     
  4. Moobrack

    Moobrack Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    If anything like that goes wrong with my cdrom, i would just buy a new one, they are cheap enough.
     
  5. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    A new cd rom wont help this case, because its the IDE controllers not being installed that causing my problems I believe. My question is: WHY? This motherboard is only a year old (asus A7A266), it shouldnt be dying just yet.. however every time I reinstall windows it only loads up my hard drives controller
     
  6. Moobrack

    Moobrack Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    ok!

    can you download them from the net? I dont really know much about hardware.
     
  7. Sniper

    Sniper Administrator Staff Member

    Likes Received:
    59
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Have you checked that all the wires in your computer are properly connected? Well the ones related to the cd-rom, did you do any thing in particular after which the cd-rom stopped working?
     
  8. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Hadnt touched the inside of my computer for months before the problems started. Anyways, I checked all the connections, the plastic bit for the power doesnt exactly fit in there as snug as they do on my hard drives, but it still makes full connections, and the cd-rom 'WORKS', it's just I have to run it through the mscdex commands, and it doesnt even work properly in that case for reasons already mentioned. I'm quite positive the big problem lies in the controllers, but Im not sure what I can do, seeing as windows hardware searching doesnt locate any anymore.
     
  9. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    I'd check the pin connections. One of the problems on my Asus A7V was one pin on one IDE connector was bent. That caused a few problems. I'd like to go blame this on ALi, but that sounds awfully weird.

    When you check again, make sure the IDE cables are stripped anywhere. I've seen that cause major problems before.
     
  10. Illa

    Illa Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    His Cd-rom seems to work fine in Dos though....

    I would try downloading drivers for your motherboard, or if you got a cd withyour MB, reinstall the drivers, this should redetect your IDE controllers, also you might want to try going into safe mode and see if anything there is detected multiple times.
     
  11. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Well, I had done that as well, nothing really seemed to work. I think there may be a chance that my cd-rom is actually just getting old and needs replacement. I've since clean formatted both hard drives, and my CD-ROM has been working fine under this install of Win98se, although recently it (primary slave) fails on startup. A few reboots and wiggling of the cords gets it to work.
     
  12. Black Bart

    Black Bart Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Its No Good

    If a CD-Rom Goes bad it has nothing to do with the IDE controllers its just burt out. If i were you i would just save a little time and buy a new one.
     
  13. Black Bart

    Black Bart Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Its No Good

    If a CD-Rom Goes bad it has nothing to do with the IDE controllers its just burnt out. If i were you i would just save a little time and buy a new one.
     
  14. Kyrandos

    Kyrandos Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    the cd-rom was fine, it was win XP. WinXP is an atrocity with some cool features. But I cant say that putting roses around an aborted fetus makes it any prettier.
     

Share This Page