can't see CD ROM on MY COMPUTER Options

[dconant1]

I could see the CD drive on MY COMPUTER as Drive E:\ .... but now I can't see it. Someone told me yesterday to get into the BIOS and check the settings. I don't even know how to do that. I have Windows 2000 NT Professional operating system.

[squizzi]

First, can you tell me if you insert a CD into the drive does it notice it? Does the led on the front blink? Do you hear it spinning?

If your drive notices it then its a Windows issue, if not, its a hardware issue.

Try looking for it in the BIOS.

Who manufacturers your computer?

Most BIOS' are entered by pressing a certain key when the system boots. Most commonly this key is delete or F2, but can also be the escape key.

To get into BIOS you must do the following:

When you turn your computer on wait until you see your keyboard light up (Num Lock, Scroll Lock and Caps Lock all light up) and then tap the corresponding key until the BIOS screen appears.

Once you are inside the BIOS it will look daunting, it isn't, some BIOS's show all of your current drives right on the home screen, while others require you to go somewhere. Usually, this can be found in the "Standard CMOS Settings." You will usually see the names of your different drives on the screen, if you see your CD-ROM drive then its connected, and most likely functioning correctly.

I can give you additional help, and everyone else here can even guide you through the entire process if you know who manufactures your computer.

[dconant1]

I actually have two drives. The CD-Rom is Drive F:\ and the DVD Burner is Drive E:\. Both light up when I insert a disk. Then after I close the tray, the light only stays on for 5-8 seconds and goes out. When I go to MY COMPUTER or EXPLORE I can't see either drive. No way to boot up the disk even when the disk is usually booting itself.

The computer is a PC Clone. A former employee put it together about 5 years ago. It has worked great ever since. I still have the User's Manual of the Mother Board. It's Gigabyte Model #GA-7VTXE/GA-7VTXH with an AMD processor. The Manual also has another number on the front: VIA KT266A AGPset.

Through using your instructions I was able to access the BIOS by pressing the DEL key. And I could see the "Standard CMOS Settings" on the first page. I pressed ENTER. The second screen showed
Pri Master: AUTO
Pri Slave: ARMD-HDD: ZIP
Sec Master: CDROM
Sec Slave: CDROM

I hope that's enough to help you guide me further. Thanks for your assistance.

[kazzoo]

Hello dconant1

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your optical devices.

squizzi is right on about having you find out if the drives are recognized at the bios level.

Way to go squizzi!

It is a good indication that the drives are ok and that Windows the OS has lost track of them.

One more thing to check is to go to the Device manager in Windows and see if it lists the optical devices there. If they are there are there any yellow exclamation points or errors? If there are errors you may wish to right click them (the optical drive) and get the properties and see what the error is.

Two fixes I know of for the common reasons of drives not showing up or working properly requires some deletions and/or some registry editing.

One is to delete the secondary ide channel from Device manager, reboot and let Windows find the channel and drives again.

The other fix requires editing the Registry.

So before taking on any registry editing, I would suggest you make a back up using a tool called ERUNT. Here is a link to this tool plus a tutorial.

Erunt Tutorial

I again caution that this is a registry edit and its still your computer and the risk is your own. Should a mistake be made, you will have the registry backup to put you back before the fix.

Please read through before doing.

Fix for missing DVD/CD drives.

Create a text file with NOTEPAD and copy and paste containing the following data exactly as below and SAVE AS FIXCD.REG to your desktop.

You should see 3 boxes on the bottom in NOTEPAD before you ok it to be saved.
1)Filename : fixcd.reg
2)Save as type: all files
3)Encoding: ANSI

If you do not change it from txt type to All files type, then the file will actually be fixcd.reg.txt, this won't accomplish
the desired result

Double click on the FixCD file you just created from off your desktop and say yes to the merge into registry question.

----------------------- Use text after this line, contents of FIXCD.REG ------------------------

CODE

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}]
"UpperFilters"=-
"LowerFilters"=-

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr]

------------------------------ Use text before this line --------------------------------

Re-boot computer.

See if cd/dvd function works.

Regards

Kaz.

This post has been edited by kazzoo: Nov 26 2007, 01:38 PM

[dconant1]

Well guess what .... I can now see my CD & DVD drives in MY COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My thanks to Squizzi and Kazzoo. Couldn't have done it w/o you guys. I am amazed that this sort of forum is available for us "know-nothings" to take advantage of. Really, this is much better than calling Dell or Microsoft and holding & holding & having to wait, turn off computer, turn on computer, etc. You guys just seem to know computers better than regular Tech support people that I normally talk to on the the phone. Anyway, you solved my problem. If it starts to act up again I know where I'm coming.

[kazzoo]

Greetings dconant1

Glad to hear its all good now. You did fine and you now have just fixed a computer.

Welcome to the Tech Zone!

Regards

Kaz.

[ShaverLakeRE]

I am having the same problem. I have Windows Vista. How do I know which item in the device manager is the secondary ide? Thank you so much for any help!