CD-Rom not detected in Windows 98? 1

[smaxted]

Hey!
I have a friend who I'm trying to get their cd-rom to work but it's impossible... Whenever I boot the computer up BIOS detects it but it doesn't show up in windows...I have tried other cd-rom drives.. thanks!

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[edfair]

master, slave, primary, secondary? Chipset?
Sometimes deleting the IDE controller and rebooting will help.
Any marks in the mangler concerning the IDE?

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[smaxted]

I have the cd-rom set as master on the secondary IDE channel...it's a brand spanking new motherboard...an ECS K7S0M sis 735 chipset if Im not mistaken.. there is no sign of it in the device manager...I don't even think secondary IDE shows up in the device manager

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[edfair]

Until the secondary IDE is detected and drivers loaded the CD doesn't exist.
Check the BIOS to make sure everything is enabled.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[smaxted]

Everything is enabled in bios and there seems not to be anything fishy...I can't install any drivers until I can get the cd-rom to work....anything else I should investigate?????

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[edfair]

Get something like 98SE boot disk that has CD support. If it is accessed OK there you know you have driver problems.
If you get DOS access transfer the drivers to the hard drive and install from there.
May require you to get a later set of drivers from the manufacturer's website.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[diogenes10]

primary slave as a temporary measure?

 

[smaxted]

Thanks edfair...I'll give that a shot....I already tried making the cd primary slave...

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[13sio]

Have u install all mainboard drivers, e.g. inf?

 

[smaxted]

How can I install all motherboard drivers when the cd-rom doesn't work??? That's my problem...I need to get the cd-rom to work so I can install the motherboard drivers....
Question to Edfair...shouldn't windows just auto detect the cd-rom instead of me installing drivers for it because it's just a generic cd-rom without any sort of drivers....if I need cd-rom drivers what should I use...

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[smaxted]

Something I forgot to say is that the original motherboard was fried by lightning and this one is new..though they haven't reformated their hard drive...could this be a conflict therefore the cd-rom wouldn't work....????

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"

 

[hdingman]

Does your BIOS have a "CDROM" configuration in standard setup? Try it both ways, as CDROM or as None. I tore my hair out with this for a while, ended up loading real-mode driver, then did performance tuning and CD-ROM came up fine. Still don't know why.

 

[JeffPr]

I am not very good with computers yet so you will have to bear with me. I am trying to get an old computer with a 300 mHz processor to work again. I recently formatted the hard drive and I tried to install windows 98 again but the original CD-ROM that came with the computer wouldn't work. I was using a CD-burner I bought for the computer and this worked fine on the computer.

So I installed windows 98 using the CD Burner and I just want to have a CD-ROM in the computer but it doesn't work, the computer will pick up the original CD-ROM but it will say drive inaccessible when I try to use it. I therefore conclude that the original CD-ROM is broken. Now the weird part is that I bought two other CD-ROM's and when I put either one of them in the computer it wouldn't start windows 98. A message would come up saying primary hard disk failure and nothing would happen. So the computer will work fine with the CD-burner, will read the original CD-ROM, but its broken, and won't read any foreign CD-ROM. Can somebody help me with this problem?

 

[hdingman]

I guess I misunderstood part of the problem. Most likely, the old CD-ROM is pre-ATAPI drive. Set BIOS to "None" for the drive, and try booting with the Win-98 startup floppy disk. (the one that does NOT start the GUI)

If it finds the old CD-ROM and it works, probably as drive D:, you might try just loading the real-mode drivers in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT (copy the device=xxxx.SYS and MSCDEX.EXE to the hard drive) It's not as fast as using the 32-bit virtual mode drivers, and there are some other disadvantages. If it works, though, it's better than nothing.

Check to see if there's a manufacturer-specific driver available for the CD-ROM drive. Driverguide.com may be a good place to find it.

HD

 

[JeffPr]

Thanks for your help HD. I messed around with the BIOS screen and I think I did something to the effect of what you said and I managed to get my CD-ROM workng.

~

I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it ~ Erwin Schrodinger talking about quantum mechanics.

 

[hdingman]

and don't forget

"The Contributions of Edsel Murphy to the Understanding of the Behavior of Inanimate Objects"

A.K.A "Murphy's Laws"

;-)
hd

 

[edfair]

smaxted,
don't know your status, but will comment:
Booting to DOS with a boot disk will access the CD lots of times but when windows goes in it loads drivers for the specific chips that are used to interface the processor to the rest of the machine.
There are several system glitches still running around trying to create havoc. Specific example is the Intel BBX chipset for 95. 95 didn't have an .inf file to match the chip so no matter how well it identified it, it couldn't load a driver. So there were bunches of people without CDs or drives on the secondary controller. Solution was to get the .inf file from intel or the M/B manufacturer or off a floppy that came with the M/B ,load to where it was needed and then change drivers , or delete and let it autoinstall.
There were also some issues with VIA 4 in 1 chipset drivers.
In both the above cases the mangler showed problems, since the correct drivers are needed for the chip to work. And without those corect drivers the processor couldn't see through the chips to get at the CD to identify it. And if it doesn't identify it it won't show up.
This is what I think you are fighting. But I'm not sure. If it is the .inf file, you usually download it and put it on a floppy and transfer it across that way. Somewhere around 500 bytes long, just a couple of lines of text.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[smaxted]

Thanks EdFair....your last post solved my probs!!!!

Scotty Mac a.k.a smaxted

"Another day, another problem"