cd drive not responding consistently

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ronald Smyth
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Ronald Smyth

I have a Compaq Presario 5441 desktop pc. 475 mhz AMD cpu. 64 mb memory. Win
98 SE. 7.85 gig hard drive. Many times I will try to install a cd and the cd
will not respond at all. Sometimes I can install but then I get an error
when trying to run it such as 'runtime error 429 activex component can't
create object'. Some cd's I can install and run (Transparent foreign
language cd created in 98). Do I need a new cd-drive? More memory or a
general
hardware and OS upgrade? How do I make the neccessary upgrade?
 
I have a Compaq Presario 5441 desktop pc. 475 mhz AMD cpu. 64 mb memory. Win
98 SE. 7.85 gig hard drive. Many times I will try to install a cd and the cd
will not respond at all. Sometimes I can install but then I get an error
when trying to run it such as 'runtime error 429 activex component can't
create object'. Some cd's I can install and run (Transparent foreign
language cd created in 98). Do I need a new cd-drive? More memory or a
general
hardware and OS upgrade? How do I make the neccessary upgrade?
Click to expand...

On a CD that has this error, next time try copying all the
files from CD to hard drive... see if they're all readable.
If they are, see what's running in the background while
you're trying to do this installation, things like
Intellipoint or antivirus software can be a problem and
could be disabled/closed prior to doing an instalation.

Your system is at about that age where it might need a new
drive, but this can't be determined for certain yet, only
after trying to copy files off of a CD that is known good,
ie- readable in other systems using same copy-to-HDD test.

You should not need more memory merely to install something
from CD. When you get errors running the program, after
installed (and providing it's not trying to read data from
the CDROM at that point of running) it would seem more of an
OS configuration or buggy software problem. See the support
notes on the software or google groups for that title.

The best OS upgrade for your box is "none", it is old/slow
enough that Win98se is the best choice for it. Hardware
upgrades (enough to support WinXP for example and be good
bang-for-buck) would usually require modifying the case for
better airflow, buying new power supply too in addition to
typical motherboard/CPU/memory/video/hard drive. In other
words, best course for upgrade would be building a new
system from scratch.
 
Ronald said:
I have a Compaq Presario 5441 desktop pc. 475 mhz AMD cpu. 64 mb memory. Win
98 SE. 7.85 gig hard drive. Many times I will try to install a cd and the cd
will not respond at all. Sometimes I can install but then I get an error
when trying to run it such as 'runtime error 429 activex component can't
create object'. Some cd's I can install and run (Transparent foreign
language cd created in 98). Do I need a new cd-drive? More memory or a
general
hardware and OS upgrade? How do I make the neccessary upgrade?
Click to expand...

I just wanted to add a bit of ancillary info.

"Runtime error 429 -- ActiveX component can't create object" is almost
certainly a *software* problem, unrelated to any hardware problem. Most
often this is caused by:

1) Bad programming that assumes the presence of a particular library,
which is not present on your machine.

2) A boogered up registry.
 
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