Unable to See CD-RW/DVD Drives - Win98 SE

[bevkpope]

I am suddenly unable to see my CD-RW nd DVD drives under Microsoft Windows 98 SE. I did not install any new hardware or software. I;ve looked through all my hardware resources information and there are no conflicts.

I have a second harddrive, on which I have installed Linux -- it can see the drives. Dell diagnostics also can see the drives (it boots in a DOS mode).

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be causing this problem? That is, how can I make it see my drives again?

Thanks,

 

[rockerfellerz]

Are you saying that in the device manager there are no entries for CD drives? How about the entries for the ide controllers?

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[Jontmke]

Also, when you boot up, does the bios see them? If not, then there is where you start looking.

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[bevkpope]

I used to have a CD-ROM section in System Properties/Device manager. It is missing now and I can find no references to anything related to a CD-ROM in Device Manager. I don't even see my hard drive in there any more. I checked on my husband's Windows 98 SE computer and everything is there on his machine -- its all missing on mine.

I see all the drives in:
BIOS
DELL diagnostics
RedHat Linux 8.0

Thanks,
Bev

 

[TekTippy4U]

Have you changed any settings in either the BIOS..and/ or Device manager?...proir to this problem...

you may need to reenable Dual IDE(or BOTH) channels under the BIOS setting of HDD controllers....

At System boot......does your BIOS allow you to "Display messages"(or something similar) to see what's being recognized?.....You could hit the "pause" key during POST stage of boot if you see a screen with info you'd like to check out whizzing by....then hit any other key to release the pause.......

 

[edfair]

Or delete the IDE controller in device mangler. Let it reload them on the next boot.
Once the secondary is in place , the next boot should bring them back.

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.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Edfair;

I thought that too.......but then realized if it's not enabled in the BIOS; won't the IDE controller just reset the way it was........?
I realize that I'm assuming the BIOS info had been changed....
and it's probably (if anything)......more likely that someone changed something elsewhere...like Device Mangler.....(a very apprapo term).....

 

[TekTippy4U]

Edfair;

And would the Add New Hardware wizard be appropriate here.....?
I don't know what the effect of the Second Harddrive May have on everything..... wouldn't that(second drive) be most likely listed as Secondary Master instead of the CD/DVD......or would/should it be the Slave?? of the Primary.....
Thanks in advance for any "Possible" clarification....
I think we need more info from the user.....eh?

 

[edfair]

With the improved hardware detector it probably won't be neccessary.

All I would be looking for is replacement of possibly corrupted drivers.



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.

 

[vop]

Could this be the result of a virus? What AV tool do you use? Is it current? Have you tried another or Online AV tool for a second opinion (such as 'Housecall' - Trend Micro)? See:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?q="cannot+see"+drives+win98+virus&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-

"Most likely this is a virus because
the bios sees the CD ROMs and I can semi-use them if I
boot to Win98 floppy. This is what I have done so far:
I got Norton Antivirus and try to run but since I do not
have CD ROM, I cannot install it.

...

Luckily, I had a copy of mcafee on my hard drive and I was
able to install it. I had a stealthboot.c virus. Problem
solved."



Add keyword 'dell' for two (2) specific hits.

 

[bevkpope]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.

It is not a virus -- at least Nortan AntiVirus cannot find anything with the latest update. Actually, that's the first thing that I tried. I'm sorry that I forgot to mention it.

The BIOS setting is correct.

I've tried removing the IDE controller and then added it back again -- to no avail.

What driver do I need to reinstall?

The only thing on the 2nd hard drive is Linux and it works beautifully.

Thanks,
Bev

 

[edfair]

How are the drives set up? Both hard on primary, both CDs on secondary?

In the mangler, what do you have for hard drive controller/s? Any yellow or red marks.

Attempting to figure what you have and match to known issues.

You might also want to download and use Belarc advisor, Sisoft Sandra, or AIDA32 for identifying what you have on the M/B.

And speaking of M/B, what do you have? And do you have the drivers that came with it? May have been a floppy, or may have been a CD. Should have been some IDE drivers on whichever you got.

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.

 

[bevkpope]

Disk Manager
------------
There are no error indicators in Device Manager (i.e, no yellow/red marks) in any device. I don't see any CD/DVD device in Device manager. Indeed the only disk related devices are:

Disk Drives
Generic NEC Floppy Disk
Floppy Disk Controllers
Standard Floppy Disk Controller
HDC
Intel (R) 82801BA Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 244B

When I look on my husband's 98SE system, I see other drives listed under disk drives.

I tried Belarc advisor, as was suggested, but it just repeats what disk manager sees -- no cd/dvd drives.

From BIOS:
----------
Primary IDE Master:
Master: Quantum Fireballp LM
Slave: WDC WD400BB-75AuA-1
Secondary IDE Master:
Master: _NEC DV-5700A
Slave: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-WU

I have not changed anything in BIOS and it was working before, so I think the BIOS settings are correct. Also, if they were wrong, then Linux would also have difficulties seeing the drives and they still show up in there.

Drivers
-------
The system came with a Dell resource CD-ROM, which is supposed to include all drivers. I cannot read it because I cannot see my CD-ROM. I'll try reading it on the Linux side, but will only be able to do so if the files are compatible with a Linux application.

I went to Plextor's web site and they say their drive does not need a special driver under windows 98 -- it is supposed to use CDFS (whatever that is). I went to Microsoft's support pages to find more information, but was unable to find anything pertinent. I'll look to see if it came with a CD-ROM, but I still won't be able to read it under Windows 98 even if it came with one.

Bev Pope

 

[vop]

The following is a very focused (groups) search for:

"cd-rom missing" microsoft win98 (15 links only)

http://groups.google.ca/groups?num=...m+missing"+microsoft+win98&btnG=Google+Search

See if any of these links help to give any further avenues for exploration or additional insight on possible considerations.

Since Linux works with the CD-ROM, the issues have to be related to WIN98 drivers (remove and redetect related devices (such as hard disk controllers)/update drivers, bios support for your OS (reset to default?), or a recent software install that has impacted (clobbered) Win98 in some way - (Linux?).

 

[vop]

THis possible solution just might work for you:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=e...missing%22+microsoft+win98&btnG=Google+Search

OK, here's the solution to my problem. My favorite Windows hacker opened device manager and selected properties for 'Standard Dual PCI IDE controller', he then selected "both IDE channels enabled" from the drop down window. Windows then found the CDROM and listed it in device manager. There still isn't a second IDE channel listed in the BIOS. I think that's what was so confusing to me

 

[bevkpope]

FYI, the problem turned out to be a corrupted registry. Of course, by the time that I discovered that, any good backups by the system had been overwritten, and I was unable to restore the registry from any of them. (And of course, I did not have a backup.)

I happened to have a copy of Microsoft Windows Me on hand (a free upgrade that I hesitated to install), so I "bit the bullet" and did the upgrade to Me. I can now see my CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives

I would like to thank everyone who provided such insightful suggestions -- many things that I had not heard of before. It is good to know that so many people are willing to help the uninformed .

Bev Pope