CD RW no longer recoginized

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave C.
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave C.

I have a Dell 8300, P4, XP, SP2, and the system no longer finds my CD
neither on restart or cold boot. It does not show up on my computer or
explorer and inserting a CD, it is just dead.

Just prior to that, I connected my daughter's Fuji camera (via USB), and it
did not show up as a removable drive or anything else. Up until that point,
it worked fine as I had burned some pictures on a CD. My Sony camera still
shows as a removable drive.

What would be the easiest way to get the CD drive back into operation? I
would think the computer would have found the drivers somewhere on my
system, as all that is installed from day one. The CD has worked from the
beginning (three years old) until just now.

Thanks in advanced.

Dave C.
 
Dave C. said:
I have a Dell 8300, P4, XP, SP2, and the system no longer finds my CD
neither on restart or cold boot. It does not show up on my computer or
explorer and inserting a CD, it is just dead.

Just prior to that, I connected my daughter's Fuji camera (via USB), and
it did not show up as a removable drive or anything else. Up until that
point, it worked fine as I had burned some pictures on a CD. My Sony
camera still shows as a removable drive.

What would be the easiest way to get the CD drive back into operation? I
would think the computer would have found the drivers somewhere on my
system, as all that is installed from day one. The CD has worked from the
beginning (three years old) until just now.

Thanks in advanced.

Dave C.
Click to expand...
What I failed to mention is that when connecting my visiting daughter's Fuji
camera, the system unsuccessfully looked for drivers. At that point, the CD
which was drive H showed up on explorer but when inserting a CD, an error
message came up indicating an I/O error. Saw that only once, After
rebooting, one time I saw a message in the tray, "Found new hardware" and
that's all that happened. After that, there was no more information and the
CD drive showed that it did not exist.

Dave C.
 
Dave C. said:
What I failed to mention is that when connecting my visiting daughter's
Fuji camera, the system unsuccessfully looked for drivers. At that point,
the CD which was drive H showed up on explorer but when inserting a CD, an
error message came up indicating an I/O error. Saw that only once, After
rebooting, one time I saw a message in the tray, "Found new hardware" and
that's all that happened. After that, there was no more information and
the CD drive showed that it did not exist.

Dave C.
Click to expand...
And finally as per "Hardware Troubleshooter," using the Device Manager, I
uninstalled the device,then when reinstalling it, I get an error message
"The device cannot start (Code 10). Thus no results at all.

The last step in the Troubleshooter is to disconnect the power, open the
case, unplug the drive cables, plug them in again, and then go through the
procedure again. I have not done this and will wait until maybe someone can
add to the solution....don't have time to do unplug the CD right now.

Dave
 
Dave C. said:
What I failed to mention is that when connecting my visiting daughter's
Fuji camera, the system unsuccessfully looked for drivers. At that point,
the CD which was drive H showed up on explorer but when inserting a CD, an
error message came up indicating an I/O error. Saw that only once, After
rebooting, one time I saw a message in the tray, "Found new hardware" and
that's all that happened. After that, there was no more information and
the CD drive showed that it did not exist.

Dave C.
Click to expand...
What I jud did was using the Device Manager, I uninstalled the device (using
the Hardware Troubleshooter). When I reinstalled it, I got the erroe
message "This device cannot start. (Code 10)" The last step in the
troubleshooter is to unplug the computer, open the case, remove the CD
cables, plug them back in, close up the case and power up the computer. I
am going to wait to see if anyone has anyother ideas besides I do not have
the time right now to do this last step.

Dave C.
 
Restore the PC to an earlier restore point and everything should be as it was before you connected the Fuji camera.
The problem could be with the drive letter, not likely unless you have enough devices attached that the camera wanted to be drive H, or a conflict between the two cameras.
 
Mike Walsh said:
Restore the PC to an earlier restore point and everything should be as it
was before you connected the Fuji camera.
The problem could be with the drive letter, not likely unless you have
enough devices attached that the camera wanted to be drive H, or a
conflict between the two cameras.
Click to expand...


Mike, that was a good thought, and I should have thought of it too. But
restore back two days did not work. When I reversed the restore, the CD
drive H was shown in Windows Explorer. When I put in a CD to play it, I
get "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

Is this I/O error a hardware failure? Cable failure? If so, this might be a
only a coincidence relative to the Fuji camera hookup attempt. And it might
mean a new drive (which would be a DVD-CD burner).

Does it make sense to open the case, disconnect the cables, and reconnect
them? I guess this only makes sure the cables are seated properly.

Would like any thoughts on this.

Regards, Dave C,
 
Dave C. said:
Mike, that was a good thought, and I should have thought of it too. But
restore back two days did not work. When I reversed the restore, the CD
drive H was shown in Windows Explorer. When I put in a CD to play it, I
get "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

Is this I/O error a hardware failure? Cable failure? If so, this might be a
only a coincidence relative to the Fuji camera hookup attempt. And it might
mean a new drive (which would be a DVD-CD burner).

Does it make sense to open the case, disconnect the cables, and reconnect
them? I guess this only makes sure the cables are seated properly.

Would like any thoughts on this.

Regards, Dave C,
Click to expand...

The error appears to be a hardware error and it might be as you suspect only coincidence that it occurred after the camera was connected. You can eliminate the possibility of an OS problem by booting from a DOS floppy or CD with CDROM support and try to access the drive, or try booting from the CD drive with e.g. your windows installation CD. If you have access to another PC you could swap CD drives between them. There is no need to install drivers, any drive should be recognized as a CDROM drive. It is good practice to simply reseat the cables before swapping hardware, many times the device will start working again.
 
Mike, yes it looks like a hardware problem. I clone my 80gig to another 80
gig drive (XXClone) which is bootable. Cloned it about 4 weeks ago. When
booting up on the clone drive, it too did not recognize the CD drive. Later
this week I will check the connectors and may need to get a new drive. It
will be a DVD-CD burner.

Thanks for the info and chat.

Dave C.
 
I had a similar problem due to Windows pre-bundled CD burning software and I
had to go into the registry and delete the keys for upperfilter(s) and
lowerfilter(s). Maybe it will work for you.


---Matthew Hicks
 
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