what have i done? CD-roms dissappeared..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lorddiagram
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Lorddiagram

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Anyone know how to fix this problem: My Cd-rom and dvd-rom have disappeared in Win98. In safe mode under Device Manager they are listed but they are not in explorer and in regular mode they are completely gone. I'd re-install win98 but i can't access my cd-rom. Can't figure this one out.

Thanks

lD
 
What does your System Control Panel say (or maybe it's Devices - haven't been on '98 for a long time)?

Daf
 
If the drives are at all functional, they should show up in the Device Manager (aka System control panel). Right-click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties", then go to the "Devices" tab. Look under "Disk Drives". Do you see the CD-ROM and DVD drives? If not, check your BIOS settings to make sure you didn't inadvertently disable your secondary IDE channel (I'm assuming that these two drives are on the secondary channel).

DonF
 
This is a common problem with Win98 - I've read about it before, and had the chance of having it myself once on my dad's comp. I *think* you can get the CD's back by just doing a "Search for new hardware..." again, but I'm not to sure about that... google surely knows.


Herwig
 
tried the search for new hardware. didn't work. my "Device Manager" in "normal mode does not even list a Cd-ROM category of hardware. In Safe mode there is a CD-ROM category and they are listed, but in Explorer in both Safe and Normal mode does not show either CD-Rom. I have a Win98 Cd - how can i load a basic Cd-Rom driver and reload windows 98?

Thanks for your answers
lD
 
The only time this has showed up for me, i just restart and it's all good
 
Lorddiagram said:
... my "Device Manager" in "normal mode does not even list a Cd-ROM category of hardware.
Click to expand...
You might see them listed under "Disk Drives" along with your hard drive(s).

I'm not sitting in front of a Win98 machine at the moment, or I would be more specific.

DonF
 
thanks for the reply but no . they weren't under drives. Can i delete something and load a basic DOS cd-driver and then re-install windows?

Thanks lD
 
That's an interesting problem, because typically in Win98 Safe Mode you don't have access to your CD-Drives, and they are not listed.

Here are a couple of things you can check -

First, go into device manager and look under "resouces". The secondary and primary IDE controllers use IRQ 15 and 14 respectively. See if something else is trying to use those same IRQs

Next, look in the computer BIOS. On most PCs you get into this by hitting the DELETE key on boot up. Make sure both Primary & secondary IDE controller are enabled. Then check the main screen to see that it does not think that a hard drive is supposed to be occupying the controller - it should say "CD-ROM" or "None"

Next, open the PC up and make sure your power & IDE cables are still connected and tight.

Finally, use the utility in Win98 to make a Windows startup floppy disk. Once finished try booting up your PC from it. If you can boot from the floppy, your hardware is OK, its a windows problem.

If all these things don't change anything, you might want to try a Win98 re-install. You should be able to install over the top of what you have and not lose anything. Use your Startup floppy to boot the PC, then copy the entire WIN98 folder from the CD to your C: drive. Then go into that WIN98 folder on your C: drive and run Setup.

Hope this helps...
 
Well, if you're set on reinstalling Windows, you should be able to either use your emergency boot diskette (you did create one, didn't you?) to boot up, then reinstall from the CD.

If you didn't create an EBD, see if you can get the machine to boot from the CD-ROM. You will probably need to make a small change in the BIOS settings to do this. I'm not sure that all Win98 CD's are bootable, but I'm pretty sure that all Win98SE CD's are.

DonF
 
I had a similar problem in ME, turned out I had a bad cd-rw drive - it was first in the IDE chain so it took out my DVD as well. Finally returned to normal when I disconnected the CD-RW (tried disabling it, but ME would lose it, then find it again...). Replaced it with a USB CD-RW.

I realize this is not the exact same situation you have, but it's similar. Good luck...

Daf
 
thanks for the replies - trying your suggestions now - it all started with a failed installation of the WaMi Rack drivers....

lD
 
I just re-installed win98 from the cab files on my hard drive. On boot the Dos screen lists my cd-rom drive but then windows does not "see it" or even see new hardware. What in the H%ll is going on here?

I didn't specifically see a way to enable or disable the secondary ide slot... Thanks for you all time

lD
 
I just removed my Dvd-rom and the changed my HP cd-writer from "slave" to "master" ............ the BIOS screen recognized the CD-writer "as it has been" and also recognized that it had been changed to "master" -

so it looks like the hardware works but Windows doesn't want to see it anymore.
What could be missing or disabled - what the crud?

Thanks

lD
 
Should have asked before

In the Device Manager window, do you see any devices with red "X" marks on them? (This would indicate a resource conflict.)
 
nope - - no conflicts - no category in Normal mode that lists CD-rom drives - in safe mode thay are listed but it says "these devices cannot be accesed in safe mode"

thanks lD
 
OK, here's another idea you can try. In safe mode, remove the devices. Then, reboot in normal mode and see whether Windows detects "new" hardware.

Kind of a longshot.

One other thing: you mentioned a failed WaMi install. Did that leave any partially installed devices? If so, can you remove them?
 
I did just that removed them in safe mode and now both safe and normal mode do not see them.

But still my BIOS sees the hp-writer just fine.

I did manually remove the drivers from WaMi - they all started with WMl - I was afraid I'd screwed something up but thought that re-installing windows would fix it .. but nope... I can't figure this one out.

Thanks
LD
 
In the Device Manager, look under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers". Do you see a Primary IDE Channel and a Secondary IDE Channel? (May have different labels -- I'm looking at a Win2K device manager as I type this.) Could be that the secondary IDE channel is messed up, and an R&R of that would do the trick. Also, what's listed under "Disk Drives"?
 
checked it but my "device manager" doens't have that listing. Thanks for the reply

Ld
 
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