CD-ROM drive no longer detected in BIOS. Strange problem; What happened?

[DWF]

Hi,

The problem first appeared when I tried to play a VCD movie in my CD-ROM drive. The drive was trying to access the disc, but the blue screen eventually popped up. I hit "ESC" to get back to my desktop and inserted a different VCD. That one did work, but eventually crashed after I tried to skip to different parts of the movie several times. Moments later, I inserted a game CD and nothing happened. Autorun did not start. I tried clicking on the CD-ROM drive in Explorer but got nothing but an error message stating that the drive is not accessible---as if there was nothing in the drive at all.

I then rebooted. My two hard drives and my one CDRW drive were all detected, but the normal CD-ROM drive didn't show up. After entering the BIOS setup, I checked for the CD-ROM entry, but there was none. The CD-ROM drive was installed as a secondary slave, but now only the word, "none", shows up in the drive listing.

Device Manager shows no problems (no exclamations; "This device is working properly"). The CD-ROM light is still blinking every three seconds to check for CD's. The drive can still eject, but yeah...this is just a power supply issue that is unrelated.

What happened? I sure hope this CD-ROM drive didn't fail on me. If anyone can shed some light on the situation, I'd be happy to hear it. Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[techfuzz]

1. Check the IDE and power cable to the drive. Make sure they're securely connected. Check functionality.
2. Reset CMOS then don't forget to change device detection to Auto on the IDE channel and number that is connected to the CDROM. Check functionality.
3. Try it in another computer if you have one and try a known working drive on the IDE cable that you are using to connect the "bad" CDROM. It might be the cable that has gone bad. Also try it on the other IDE channel to make sure it isn't the channel that is having issues.
4. If 1-3 all fail, the drive is most likely dead.

techfuzz

 

[Jhhnn]

I've had a couple of cdrom failures show up just that way- but there are a couple of things to try first. Try a new cable, make sure that the connections are tight. Blow it out with canned air. Remove it in device manager, then reboot, set the bios to update, see if redetection solves the problem. If not, then testing it in another machine is the only remaining option.

 

[camara120]

ummmmmmmm........ maybe its like broken or something

 

[Lalakai]

another simple test just to determine if the drive works (assuming the drive has a headphone jack); drop in a music cd and see if you can hear music through the jack (no smart comments about putting your ear to the jack and listening intently ). If you can hear the music, then it's a connector issue and you can assume the drive is okay.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

well, that last test is not really conclusive...

I saw many CD drives fail and die, including home (Hi-Fi) players... It almost never happens all at once. At first, it won't play certain discs, then the problem gets worse and worse. If you listen to a music CD, even if the drive might be dying, the music could play perfectly, especially on a pressed, good quality CD....

 

[DWF]

Well....I tried all the suggestions, but still no good. So I guess it has finally bit the dust. The drive still shows up in explorer, but I guess that's unrelated.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'll just have to use my cdrw drive for now. I'll be on the lookout now for cheap cdroms or free after rebate drives from OfficeMax

Thanks anyway, folks.

DWF

 

[Whitedog]

I had several do the same thing...

I went to the store and bought another one.

All living things and computer parts are designed to do this. It's called DIE!