Windows NT CD-ROM drive not accessible

[ksnpc]

I have a Windows NT user who reports that his CD-ROM drive has suddenly stopped working. He has used it in the past week with no problems, but today it says that the drive is not accessible. He has tried rebooting and he has used CDs that have worked in the past on that machine. Does anyone know what might cause this type of behavior?

 

[wolluf]

Drive actually has stopped working? (have seen this often with CD drives - especially older ones).

Cable has come loose in the machine?

If your user has access to a bootable CD or a win98 boot floppy and any CD, they could check if its the machine or windows that's the problem (you don't say how easy it is for you to gain physical access to the machine to check yourself).

 

[ksnpc]

Unfortunately I don't have access, he's based in a remote office at the other end of the state. He's not an especially experienced user so it makes it really hard to help him out over the phone. I'm probably going to drive out there next week to help him so I'm trying to think of everything that could cause this type of problem in advance. I only work with two NT users so I'm really not up on all of its quirks.

Thanks for your suggestions! I'll try checking the cable and working from a boot disk. If you (or anyone else) have any additional suggestions, I would love to add them to my list.

Thanks,
Shauna

 

[wolluf]

At the machine you can check the SCSI drivers icon in control panel to see if its got drivers for the CD drive (though can't think why it would lose them). I've seen NT installations 'lose' the floppy (A drive (ie, disappeared from explorer - no access from command prompt) when the drive perfectly functional (never did find out how to get it back without reinstalling). But you just said its not working - not that its disappeared. So my money's on hardware or connection problem (could be IDE controller on the mobo - if its on different connector to hard drive - I'm assuming all is IDE).

 

[Waidesworld]

My money is on the CD Rom drive itself. I have had one fail on me in an NT installation last week. The drive was about three years old but the computer had not been in the best environment, outdoor enclosure. I attached one of the office spares and it saw the CD straight away.

Please address my pet hate, "a cable is loose, you lose your keys

 

[jillmcp]

I too have a problem with my CD drive on my NT box. It was working great on Saturday, and now I am getting this "not accessible" message. Did you solve this problem?

Please help!! Jill

 

[ksnpc]

I ended up replacing the cd rom drive and it's been ok since.

 

[jillmcp]

What do you think about driving my NT box off a cliff, and finally joining the rest of the world. Any suggestions. I just shy away from investing any money in this machine.

 

[ksnpc]

Not a bad idea - I'm not a big NT fan and if I hadn't just happened to have a spare cd drive lying around I might have considered the same thing!
But seriously, you can probably find some really cheap ones with a little searching.