Windows 98 Loses CD Rom Drive

[JohnVogel]

While trying to set up windows 98 on an IBM 6549-UN4 machine... I am able to boot from floppy (Windows 98 Startup Disk) go to CD ROM and Setup Windows 98 from the CD, with no problem. However, as soon as Windows 98 Loads for the first time, It asks me for mY Windows 98 Disk, and suddenly the CD-Rom is not available. I can cancel and get to my desktop, but there are drivers missing (of course) and I can't install any drivers without the CD-Rom!!

I have tried two different CD-Roms, I've tried to change the jumper from Master to CS to completely removing it, and it still fails to find the CD-Rom. While in DOS it has no problem. Please help me, this is driving me crazy!!!

TIA

-+{John Vogel}+-

 

[edfair]

Any problem in device mangler regarding the IDE controllers?
Don't know the chipset, but intel chips used in IDE bridge applications didn't have an .inf file in 98 so the correct drivers didn't load. Works fine with DOS stuff but not with windows.
Usual to show a problem with the primary and secondary controllers if this is your problem.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[cdogg]

Are you sure it's not booting into Safe Mode? Optical drives are not available there.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Enkrypted]

You said when it loads, that there are drivers missing. Are any of the missing drivers related to the CD-ROM or like edfair mentioned, the IDE controllers?

You could also go into control panel to Add/Remove Hardware and see if it detects anything else that might be related to the CD-ROM.

You could also load up different CD-ROM drivers temporarily so you can use your computer to update everything.

Another thing I would do is get the network card driver loaded first and download the latest chipset update for that motherboard.

Enkrypted
A+

 

[JohnVogel]

Edfair: Yes, the IDE controllers are messed up in the device manager (Primary and secondary controllers)... but I can't see how I would fix this...

Enkrypted: How would I go about loading up the CD-ROM drivers temporarily from within windows, in order to update everything?


-+{John Vogel}+-

 

[Enkrypted]

You could go to places like Drivezone or DriverGuide and download CD-ROM Drivers. Most of the drivers there will have a read-me file included with them of how to go about installing those particular drivers.

It may take a couple downloads to get drivers that will actually get your CD-ROM drive working (not all CD-ROM drivers with work well with CD-Drives). Once you have those installed, your CD-ROM drive should function.

One problem you might run into though is if the CD-ROM drive is on a propriatary card (meaning that device was unique to the computer). Some of the older computers like that had their peripherals run off of controller cards. Best way to determine that would be to open the side panel and see if the IDE ribbon cable coming from the CD-ROM is plugged directly into the motherboard or if it's plugged into a add-on card.

Enkrypted
A+

 

[Enkrypted]

Forgive me, I just saw the post to edfair about the IDE controllers.

One question, is your network card driver on a floppy disk or a CD?

If it is on a floppy disk you can load that up to get internet working (assuming you are using some type of broadband connection...if not, replace network card in this thread with modem). Then once you establish an internet connection. You can download the chipset INF utility for that motherboard. That should resolve the IDE conflict you are having in Device Manager

Enkrypted
A+

 

[JohnVogel]

Enkrypted: Thanks for the advice. I'll have to try to get the thing online, which means I will HAVE to take it to my "shop", rather then going to his apartment, as he doesn't have internet connectivity, and I was hoping to simply download the appropriate drivers from here, burn them to disk and then go to his place and install them. Of course, if I can't even get it to recognize the CD-ROM, then this isn't going to work. Apparantly, I'm just going to have to take the computer and do it from here...

I'll let you know how it went. Thanks again!

-+{John Vogel}+-

 

[edfair]

The original solution was to visit Intel's site and get the .inf file that describes the chips to the installer. Fits on a floppy, copied to a windows directory, and the next reboot loads the correct drivers (which were available all the time, just not identified).
You may also have the correct drivers on a motherboard CD with a fairly simple replace option.

This only holds true if you are dealing with Intel bridge chips. You might want to try a download of one of the HW identification tools to verify. (Belarc, Sandra, Mitchell)

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[cdogg]

John,

See if anything is running in MS-DOS compatibility mode. Check here: Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab

If there is, then that explains the missing CD-ROM drives. It is NOT likely a driver issue, since optical devices use firmware (look it up) which is loaded automatically by Windows. Downloading and installing some random generic drivers could make things worse and should not be necessary. Removing the CD-ROM drives from Device Manager and rebooting should be sufficient, if it is a driver issue.

If it's the MS-DOS compatiblity error you're seeing, check here:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/msdos-compatibility.html

Otherwise, try reinstalling the chipset drivers as edfair mentioned...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[BIGBL]

I am having the same problem only I am in XP Pro. It keeps telling me it can't load the drivers for this device becasue the drivers are missing or corrupt??? How can that be when I did a clean install with the cd rom, now all of a sudden it's missing. I tried several cd rom drives to no avail HELP!!!!

 

[JohnVogel]

My problem ended up being related to a boot sector virus, a very nasty one, and stealthed... I finally had to boot up off of a clean Hard Drive, and simply ran a virus scan on the corrupted disk drive. The main problem I had was I was using the same 98 Boot Diskette to try to install windows 98 and the virus had already infected the boot diskette, so every time I booted, it would simply reinfect the hard drive.

Thanks for all the help from everyone and BIGBL, I hope you can get yours straightened out as well.

-+{John Vogel}+-