CD and DVD drives stopped working

[CN Spots]

I've got an application on my wife's Dell that requires the cd to be in the drive to run and all of a sudden, it says it can't find the cd. I have tried both the cd drive and the dvd drive. The disc is spotless and I also tried some other discs as well with the same results. Our daughter and a friend were monkeing with it the other day and may have done something unproductive to it... Thoughts? Thanks.


spots

 

[Plainsman]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Can you re-install the application? Make a backup of the data first.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Define "monkeying around"...... are you talking about opening the case and having a go at the cabling or playing around in the Bios screens??

 

[Drrockter]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Go to my computer, and see if it recognizes the drives. Also, go to the "device manager" and see if they are showing any problems. That's where I would start.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

They didn't crack the case open or anything, they just messed with the settings.

I'll try the above tonight when I get home. Thanks.

spots

 

[rwise]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

and if that fails re-seat the ribbon cables and power connectors, see that they are detected in BIOS,

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Device Manager sez this:

Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

and this:

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

The first one is the DVD ROM, the second is the CD-RW drive. Mull this over whilst I shut down and check the cables.


spots

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Unplugging and reconnecting the ribbon and power cables had no effect.

 

[i386]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

It's strange that you'd lose them both at the same time.

Try them one at a time. Make sure for each drive when you have it plugged in by itself that you use the connector that's on the end of the cable. Also set the jumper on the CDROM or DVD drives to master (it's probably labeled/embossed "MA").

If they both still fail, try slaving them one at a time with your hard drive (the other cable). Use the middle connector on the cable and set the jumper to slave. If this works, you've lost your secondary IDE bus which is unusual. You'll need to replace the motherboard to have all the drives work like they did before.

 

[Plainsman]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Slave one of the drives to the HDD. We know that controller is working.

So neither CD drive will read anything?

 

[Xcusme]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Before you get too nuts switching cables, try booting into your Bios and make sure that both IDE channels are enabled. See if you can manually set the type of detection to either Auto or CDrom for both cd/dvd drives. I'll assume , since you havn't mentioned, that both cd/dvd drives are on the Secondary IDE controller. If the bios can't detect them ,Windows won't see them either. What version of Windows XP? Seems everyone assumes we will know what version of the OS they have, it can make a big difference.
While you're in the Bios, check the boot order for the hard drive and cdroms. Make the cdrom boots before the hard drive.
Save your bios settings and place a bootable cd in the drive. Reboot and see if the cd boots. This will confirm proper operation of the cdrom drive and IDE controller. From then on, it's a Windows /driver issue etc.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

Windows XP 2002 Home Edition. Sorry. It sees the drives in bios but it says that diagnostics are not supported. I reset whilst I was in there (alt 4) with no change. I'll try the bootable cd option as soon as I find the os disks. My wife put it somewhere "safe" which is apparantly outside of the material sphere.


spots

 

[vipzach]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

It sounds like you need to delete the upper and lower filters in the registry. Go here in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E32
5-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318

Start, run, type regedit, hit enter.

In the right pane, you will see upper and lower filters, delete them both. Sometimes only one of them will be there. Reboot the computer after you delete them.

Please backup your registry first, just in case you delete the wrong thing. :'(

 

[jimr]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

funny I should read this tonight. this weekend I tried to install the newest version of Kodaks software for my camera and had to uninstall my previous one. I did and it didn't completly uninstall and the new one won't install over it. 1 thing it messed up was it removed the drivers for my cd and dvd drives. Kodak hasn't got a clue how to fix it either.:| the only way to get them back is to restore to an earlier date.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

My brother took a look at it and after about four hours of doing every trick in the book, decided that the registry was corrupted and that we need to install the os onto a external drive and boot from there to try to repair the damage. We'll see.

Interesting Jim as we use that same software...hmmm.

spots

 

[vipzach]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

CN Spots, that is why I suggested deleteing the upper and lower filters in the registry. I spent several hours one day trying to figure out why the cdroms were doing that, I finally found a microsoft document that explained how to fix it. That is what I posted above.

I have seen it several times since then and that trick has worked every time. It usually happened when the customer would have several different burning softwares and would try to uninstall one of them.

Try deleting those filters, I bet it will work.

 

[Plainsman]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

I agree with zach, if your going to reinstall the OS anyway, it can't hurt. Save you a ton of time reinstalling everything.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: CD and DVD drives stopped working

That got the DVD drive back. Thanks zach. I was a little concerned about poking around in the registry but I found an application on Microsoft Support that does it for you...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

I'll work on the CD drive later but at least now I can run diagnostic cds or reinstall the system software if need be. Thanks again.

spots