CD drives not showing

[xphoenicis]

System:
WinME
AMD 1700+
MSI nForce MB (no intigrated graphics, I forget the model number)
geFroce 4 ti 4600
Kenwood 72x cdrom
visontek cd r/rw
2 hard drives

Problem:
System refuses to recognise either cd drive when in windows. In the system control panel under device connections both the primary and secondary IDE devices show errors (10 in both cases, not all drivers loaded) The dual ide controller registers as fine.

History:
This system has done this once before. Last time I figured it was because I did a hardware upgrade without formating and reinstalling the operating syste, I reformated reinstalled and everything worked fine. About three days ago (no system changes recently) when the system booted it stared to go through the 'windows is updating your system files' sequence during bootup but I've made no system changes. It also seems to have lost the DSL modem I use, but since I don't currently have a DSL link I wasn't concerned with that error.

Things I've done:
Using a boot disk and loading the cd drivers in dos mode works fine.
I've tried removing the IDE controller and rebooting to reinstall the drivers
I've manually pulled the drivers referenced in the system control panel from the CABs and stuck them in the windows/system directory
I've pulled the drives from the system, rebooted with them not installed then reinserted them in the system
Re-run the nvidia nforce driver setup package
None of this has had any positive effect

Any advice for this will be welcome

 

[Harvey]

The loss of your DSL modem, in addition to the CDR's suggests your Windows installation may be corrupted. It may even be a virus, so a virus scan could be a good idea.

When you booted to DOS, were you able to read the directory of a disk in the drive, or did you just see that it was recognized as present? I have seen faulty drives that were recognized but could not actually read a disk.

Finally, have you verified that the jumpers on the drives are properly set as Master or Slave for your setup?

Good luck.

 

[LiLithTecH]

What CD burning software are you using?
Have you done any WinME updates lately?
What Software have you recently installed?

 

[xphoenicis]

Harvey:
A virus is doubtful, I have norton antivirus installed and running, with a virus def file from the end of sept, just before the computer was taken off the net (I've moved and don't have a connection right now) but I'll run a scan just to be sure.

When I booted to dos I read from a cd in each drive (and copied a winme cd to a HD so I could get to the CABs)

The drives are set properly as master/slave, they were funtioning fine until last night.

Lilithtech:
Using Nero as the burning software, it came with the burner (works great from my limited experiance with burners)
Last ME update was end of sept, no net connection since then.
Installed a game (rites of war) that turned out to be a bit buggy yesterday, but the 'windows is updating your system files' thing started oh, about three days ago.

Killer here is I don't have my ME CD key with me, I can't find the paper I wrote it down on and the case is in storage, otherwise I'd just do another re-install. Everything currently on the machine I have disks for.

 

[Harvey]

You could try running Add New Hardware in the Control Panel. If that doesn't work, other than a complete re-install, I'm out of ideas. Hope someone recognizes this problem and has some answers.

Considering the rep of ME, you may want to consider going back to Win98 SE. I find it a lot less troublesome. With either 98SE or ME, I hope you can wait until you have a high speed connect to re-install. The critical updates for either are hours of d/l on dialup.

 

[xphoenicis]

Tried the add new hardware route, got nowhere (forgot to mention that in my original post)

I'm planning on going to XP Home instead of back to 98SE right now. Since MOST of the updates are security issues I'm not going to worry about them until I get reconnected to the net. Downloaded a few of the driver updates for my hardware on a dialup yesterday, so I know what you mean about taking a while for the updates on dialup.

Thanks for the ideas guys, and wish me luck.

 

[MrPhelps]

Heres a crap way around it but it has worked.

1) With it powered down unplug the drives in question.
2) Reboot fully and shut down
3) Attach the ide and power back and reboot.
4) Hopefully windows will auto recognize the drives.

I have done this sucessfully before. I know it sort of a back yard mechanic way but who cares.

Good luck!!!!

 

[xphoenicis]

Tried that too MrPhelps, thanks for the suggestion though.