Now you see it...now you dont

[slycer]

I dont know why, but sometimes when I install a third party device (i.e a external IOmega Zip) on my laptop, the CD Rom drive suddenyl dissappears and when I try to access it throught START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIES-MULTIMEDIA-CD ROM, I get "There is no CD Player attached" and the service stops running. Has anone else had this happen, and if so 2 important questions:

1.) Why does this happen?
2.) How do you fix it?

I tried re-installed service pack 6, but nothing. the only way I could get it back was to slick the hardrive and start over! Any help on this would be appreciated

 

[razled]

Is it a pcmcia cd rom or part of the pc ? The most probable answer is if you install the zip drive drivers it overwrite the sys files for the cd rom , or it takes the irq, try setting the irq in the bios for the cd rom ,ie so its not plug and play, and has its own, irq 9 rings a bell, but you could check the manufactures web site or check when you have reinstalled to see which irq it taking and force it to a free irq.
Laptops are very "funny" machince to get on with, I am still trying to see my CD in dos so I can reinstall the os !

Happy days !

 

[slycer]

Its a CD Rom, that you can hot swap with the A:drive and other devices. (Its a Dell Latitude Cpi, for the curious) I kinda thought about the IRQ solution, but I dont know where to begin to look for that, let alone how to fix it. An we are running Windows NT 4.0, for some reason, which means no plug and play. If you happen to come up with and answer PLEASE let me know!

 

[BlueAlloy]

Are you using Add Hardware wizard to add new devices? This may be helpful when installing to avoid resource conflicts.

 

[slycer]

No, Im not using that. THe way I add the device is to power off the laptop, switch the device. Then Power it back on. I figured since it is Hot Swappable that I wouldnt need to use the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard. Am I doing this wrong?