Help from the UK - CD ROM access problems 2

[jaypoole]

Last week travelled 2 hours to do a favour for someone and have returned a second time today to continue with the problem!! I reformated and loaded windows 98SE onto an old PC that had previously running win95. It probably wasn't a text book install ;-) as I had a win98 full version (i.e. for a new PC) rather than the upgrade. Anyway I managed to shoe horn it on. This PC is not hooked up to modem etc and so any extra drivers or files that have gone astray have to be copied over by floppy or CD (problem 2 later) from another good PC that is hooked up to the network (running XP).

Problem 1. Lost a driver or two along the way - display adapter has defaulted to a standard PCI Graphics Adapter and consequently only gives me very low res graphical display at 16 or 2 colours.

I checked previous forum threads and discovered the joys of AIDA32 and Belarc Advisor.

Had to get AIDA32 copied over onto the problem PC by floppy in two drops as the CD ROM isn't working properly on the problem PC.

AIDA discovered I needed an intel i740 ASUS AGP-V2740 display adapter. Found this on the ASUS web site and downloaded it using the good PC.. Problem now is that the file is just over 2Mb and if I cut this onto CD then the problem PC doesn't read it (comes back with E:\ is not accesible. The device is not ready).

Tried putting the Win98SE OS disk into the problem CD drive and this time it reads this CD fine.

So the CD seems to be working OK but I can't get it to read CD's that I've cut on another PC.

Help... Any advice - I'm in the UK, it's 7:15 in the evening and I want to avoid having to travel down again another day.

thanks...

 

[1101001100110101]

Did you close the cd when you burnt it? If the session was left open it could prevent the cdrom from recognizing it.

 

[jaypoole]

After burning the drawer opened as it usually does. I removed the CD before closing the CD burning application (Prassi PrimoDVD). I'll try burning another one and close the drawer after it pops open before closing the application down. cheers..

 

[jaypoole]

Have tried it again but still the same problem. The CD ROM on the problem PC just won't read a CD I've burnt on the other PC. It will however read prerecorded CD's such as the Epson installation CD for a printer and other games and applications.

The only thing I can think now is that the CD RW drive I'm using to burn the CD is out of alignment... Though the CD I've burnt does read from both the 'good' PC's CD RW drive (as you'd expect as it was written on this one) and it's CD ROM drive.

Any ideas..?

 

[1101001100110101]

When you burn the cd/dvd there should be an option to burn a mutisession (can write and erase from the cd after it has been written to allready) or single session (it will close the cd off from editing). If you can't edit the cd contents by adding more to it or erasing from it then it should be closed and most likly is not the issue.

 

[jaypoole]

This is nuts..!

I have tried both of the CD's I've burnt in someone elses PC next door. They read in fine..

So...

Good computer is burning CD's that are readable by other PC CD drives.

Problem computer is capable of reading from pre-recorded/professionally recorded CD's i.e. Win98SE, Epson printer s/w etc. BUT not the one I have just burnt.

8pm, hungry and scratching my head still.

Any ideas guys..

 

[1101001100110101]

If you got an extra cd-rom try swaping it with the old one. It may be too old to recongnize the CD-R's.

 

[jaypoole]

No I haven't got a spare (I'm 80 miles away from home). I daren't sabotage the good PC here either at this time of night as it's needed first thing in the morning by the normal user. Too much to ask the neighbours that I've only just met and unlike the USA we don't have circuit city open round the clock ;-)

I know CD ROMdrivers are pretty standard and come off the regular Win98SE disk but is it possible that another updated one may get an the CD ROM working with CD R or if is it only curable by changing the hardware?

 

[1101001100110101]

Well im about out of ideas . But, if the driver is not ziped yet, you might be able to compress it with winzip to fit onto a floppy. Or make a muti disc set were it splits the file into 2 floppies.

hope this helps

 

[jaypoole]

Well that's something..

The floppy is working fine..

I've tried winzip but it won't compress it to small enough.

So how do you go about creating a multi-disc set - do you do that from winzip or from another utility?


By the way thanks a lot for the advice - at 7pm there was a huge cloud and now at least I feel refocused and like I'm heading somewhere - at least we have fast food open 24 hours.

 

[1101001100110101]

I belave winzip will automaticly do it if your creating a new zip. If you want to break a zip into parts thats a little diffrent. Lookup spanning in the winzip help it will tell you everything you need to know.

 

[jaypoole]

Thanks..

Managed to create a two disk set using winzip but now I discover/remember that I don't have winzip on the target problem PC - and since winzip is 2.5Mb then I'm in a vicious circle.. Unless there is any zip like utilities that are less than 1.44Mb?

 

[1101001100110101]

Try camzip its only about 800kb

http://www.camdevelopment.com/cam_unzip/download.htm

 

[jaypoole]

Fantastic..

It worked and I've now managed to install the correct driver and the display is OK again.

So apart from an issue over an old CD ROM that doesn't read CD's burnt on a modern burner then I guess I'm cooking on full gas.

Thankyou very much for your help.. I'll leave feedback in the morning as I have a long journey to make.

cheers from the UK..