"Missing" CD drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter jo
  • Start date Start date
J

jo

Hi, I just got back from college and got on my parents
computer here at home to find out that the DVD and CD-RW
drives aren't even recognized that they are on the
computer. I couldn't find them in "my computer" and not
even on the device manager. I tried turning the pc off
then physically unpluging the drives, then turing it back
on, then off again and plugging them back in, but the
computer didn't recognize anything. Could the connection
be dead on my motherboard? I was thinking that but I
don't know how they were completely removed. Please any
suggestions will help! Thanks everybody!

note: this computer had alot of viruses on it when i can
back. damaged left from those?
 
Hi, I just got back from college and got on my parents
computer here at home to find out that the DVD and CD-RW
drives aren't even recognized that they are on the
computer. I couldn't find them in "my computer" and not
even on the device manager. I tried turning the pc off
then physically unpluging the drives, then turing it back
on, then off again and plugging them back in, but the
computer didn't recognize anything. Could the connection
be dead on my motherboard? I was thinking that but I
don't know how they were completely removed. Please any
suggestions will help! Thanks everybody!

note: this computer had alot of viruses on it when i can
back. damaged left from those?
Click to expand...

You need to see if the drives show up in the motherboards BIOS setup.
Usually you see a message to press the DEL key or the F2 key, just
before the Windows system starts loading. If you can't see this or
these hot-keys don't work, then followup with what computer model you
have or the motherboard model number.

If the BIOS doesn't recognize the drives, then Windows won't see them
either. By pressing their eject button, you are proving that there is
power available to the drive(s). Using headphones and an audio CD is
another good test for functioning hardware.
 
You need to see if the drives show up in the motherboards BIOS setup.
Usually you see a message to press the DEL key or the F2 key, just
before the Windows system starts loading. If you can't see this or
these hot-keys don't work, then followup with what computer model you
have or the motherboard model number.

If the BIOS doesn't recognize the drives, then Windows won't see them
either. By pressing their eject button, you are proving that there is
power available to the drive(s). Using headphones and an audio CD is
another good test for functioning hardware.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the help. I checked the BIOS menus but i
couldn't find and CD drives, only the floppy drive and the
hard drive(s). I guess this is bad :( Anymore advice???
Thanks much!
 
Thanks for the help. I checked the BIOS menus but i
couldn't find and CD drives, only the floppy drive and the
hard drive(s). I guess this is bad :( Anymore advice???
Thanks much!
Click to expand...

Make sure that there is not another setting in the BIOS that is set to turn
off the secondary controller (which is most likely where your missing drives
are plugged in.) If this doesn't lead you anywhere, try each drive
separately, by completely unplugging the other drive. Hopefully this will
allow you to narrow down the problem a bit. It's unlikely that both drives
dies at once, so you've more likely got a controller failure, faulty cable,
or one bad drive is causing the other not to work.

--

Mike Brown
Asset Forwarding Corp.
EPA-compliant Recycling
DoD 5220.22-M Data Elimination
http://www.assetforwarding.com
 
Thanks for the help. I checked the BIOS menus but i
couldn't find and CD drives, only the floppy drive and the
hard drive(s). I guess this is bad :( Anymore advice???
Thanks much!
Click to expand...

If both CD drives are set to Master or Slave, then they won't show up.
Check their jumper settings. Usually the settings are marked on the
drive(s). If you don't want to pull the drives then try this. Connect
one CD drive at a time and note if they show up as the MASTER or
SLAVE. If they are both the same, then one of the drives need to be
rejumpered.
 
Ok, well I went into the BIOS settings screen, and the two
secondary controllers were set to "auto". I decided to
try setting them specifically to "cd-rom", and when it
started up, both of my cd-rom drives were there (one of
them worked, the other didn't). But after i restarted the
computer they were gone again, and the settings are still
set to cd-rom, but no matter what I do they are still
gone. What the heck??? Thank u soooo much for the help!
 
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