I need some ideas please---GOING INSANE

[nick1985]

umm, my friend had a problem. i recently made a computer for a friend and everything went well. except for today he said that his computer doesnt recognize his cdrw drive or his dvd drive. he said that windows has lost the drivers for them or drivers became corrupt??? im not quite sure what that means as there are no drivers for these drives. i was thinking about reformatting and reinstalling windows. any suggestions before i do this, and do you think this will fix the problem? oh, i also made him check to make sure they were plugged in.

thank you ahead of time

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Welcome to the world of neverending techsupport..

umm, my friend had a problem. i recently made a computer for a friend and everything went well. except for today he said that his computer doesnt recognize his cdrw drive or his dvd drive. he said that windows has lost the drivers for them or drivers became corrupt??? im not quite sure what that means as there are no drivers for these drives. i was thinking about reformatting and reinstalling windows. any suggestions before i do this, and do you think this will fix the problem? oh, i also made him check to make sure they were plugged in.

thank you ahead of time

Hope he isn't too far away. ;-) ..Have look in his DeviceManager to see if they are even listed.. and gl

 

[nick1985]

he said they are listed, but they are corrupt

 

[screw3d]

Usually reinstalling windows will fix this

 

[chizow]

What motherboard? If its an nForce2 board, go to device manager and update the IDE controller drivers. He probably has the SW IDE drivers installed. Change them to the standard IDE controllers, it should be an option once you choose update drivers from the device manager.

I'm not sure what he means by corrupt. Is it showing a yellow "!" in device manager? IDE controllers require drivers, but ATAPI devices like CD-RWs don't. Tell him to try right clicking on my computer, choose manage, then disk management. See if the drives are listed there and what the status is. Right click on them if they are there and see if there are options to enable them if they aren't enabled.

Chiz

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: chizow
What motherboard? If its an nForce2 board, go to device manager and update the IDE controller drivers. He probably has the SW IDE drivers installed. Change them to the standard IDE controllers, it should be an option once you choose update drivers from the device manager.

I'm not sure what he means by corrupt. Is it showing a yellow "!" in device manager? IDE controllers require drivers, but ATAPI devices like CD-RWs don't. Tell him to try right clicking on my computer, choose manage, then disk management. See if the drives are listed there and what the status is. Right click on them if they are there and see if there are options to enable them if they aren't enabled.

Chiz

he said something about a yellow !. it is an nforce2 a7n8x board

 

[chizow]

Yah, he probably installed the SW IDE drivers. Tell him to check in device manager again, right click on either with the exclamation marks right click and choose properties. Under the general tab, it should say what the issue is in the "device status" box.

I'd have him switch to the standard MCP2 IDE drivers though, under ATA/ATAPI IDE Controllers, the first device listed should be nVidia <something> Bus Master IDE Controller. Right click on it and choose update driver. Then choose install from specific location --> Don't search --> nVidia standard controller.

Chiz

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: chizow
Yah, he probably installed the SW IDE drivers. Tell him to check in device manager again, right click on either with the exclamation marks right click and choose properties. Under the general tab, it should say what the issue is in the "device status" box.

I'd have him switch to the standard MCP2 IDE drivers though, under ATA/ATAPI IDE Controllers, the first device listed should be nVidia <something> Bus Master IDE Controller. Right click on it and choose update driver. Then choose install from specific location --> Don't search --> nVidia standard controller.

Chiz

i hate to be a pain, but could you "dumb" that down for me?

 

[chizow]

I'd have him switch to the standard MCP2 IDE drivers

right click my computer > properties

click on device manager

locate "ATA/ATAPI IDE Controllers", click on "+" or twisty

the first device listed should be nVidia <something> Bus Master IDE Controller. Right click on it and choose update driver.

New window, choose "install from specific location"

New Window, choose "Don't search"

A new window should provide a list of drivers, choose nVidia standard IDE controller.

Or just have him reinstall the nForce2 motherboard drivers. When it asks you to install the SW IDE drivers, say "No". That would be easier.

Chiz

 

[nick1985]

Q. I have lots of errors in my Event Viewer regarding nVidia's IDE driver.
A. The IDE driver packaged in the nVidia nForce UDP v.2.00 package doesn?t work well for a lot of people. While this isn?t specifically related to the A7N8X in general it does apply. If you have installed the nForce UDP v.2.00 package uninstall the nVidia IDE nForce driver and either install the default MS driver that shipped with your version of Windows, or install the IDE driver from the ASUS nForce v.1.16 package. Although the driver looks to have an older version this driver package is actually newer then the nForce v.2.00 driver package and installing these is recommended anyway as it resolves other issues, some of which are noted in this FAQ.


from the a7n8x FAQ.

do you guys think it could be the mobo drivers that are actin screwy?

 

[nick1985]

also, 1 small problem with re-installing drivers/windows.


haw the heck am i supposed to do this when his drives dont function???

 

[jagr10]

Couldn't you just remove the cdrw and dvd drive from device manager, restart the computer and let windows discover the new hardware again. Then, install the drivers that came with the hardware (or download it online).

 

[Budmantom]

Originally posted by: nick1985
also, 1 small problem with re-installing drivers/windows.


haw the heck am i supposed to do this when his drives dont function???

I was thinking the same thing. LOL

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: jagr10
Couldn't you just remove the cdrw and dvd drive from device manager, restart the computer and let windows discover the new hardware again. Then, install the drivers that came with the hardware (or download it online).

I'll second this suggestion.

Thorin

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: jagr10
Couldn't you just remove the cdrw and dvd drive from device manager, restart the computer and let windows discover the new hardware again. Then, install the drivers that came with the hardware (or download it online).

sure this will work?

 

[chizow]

You can download the latest drivers from nVidia.com or from asus.com. Asus recommends using theirs. This would eliminate the CD-ROM not working issue. Reinstalling the UDA should give you the option to install the regular IDE drivers by clicking "No" when it asks if you want to install the SW IDE drivers.

You can also remove and allow windows to auto-detect as mentioned. Or you can update it and choose the standard drivers. Same difference. They both accomplish the same thing, except you manually choose or you let Windows choose for you.

This is a Windows issue, so your ATAPI devices should not be affected outside of Windows. If you place your Win2K or XP CD in the CD-ROM drive and choose to boot from your CD-ROM drive as the first boot device, you should be able to reinstall/repair your Windows installation. I would do this as a last resort, since this is a pretty simple problem to fix IMO.

Chiz

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: jagr10
Couldn't you just remove the cdrw and dvd drive from device manager, restart the computer and let windows discover the new hardware again. Then, install the drivers that came with the hardware (or download it online).

sure this will work?

i had him uninstall it and windows didnt even ask tell him he had a new hardware.....

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: chizow
You can download the latest drivers from nVidia.com or from asus.com. Asus recommends using theirs. This would eliminate the CD-ROM not working issue. Reinstalling the UDA should give you the option to install the regular IDE drivers by clicking "No" when it asks if you want to install the SW IDE drivers.

You can also remove and allow windows to auto-detect as mentioned. Or you can update it and choose the standard drivers. Same difference. They both accomplish the same thing, except you manually choose or you let Windows choose for you.

This is a Windows issue, so your ATAPI devices should not be affected outside of Windows. If you place your Win2K or XP CD in the CD-ROM drive and choose to boot from your CD-ROM drive as the first boot device, you should be able to reinstall/repair your Windows installation. I would do this as a last resort, since this is a pretty simple problem to fix IMO.

Chiz

i had him DL the latest drivers and they installed without asking him anything and i had him set his first boot device to cd-rom and neither of these worked. it didnt even detect the CD's in the cd-rom

 

[nick1985]

going crazy and running out of ideas....help

 

[mechBgon]

Could the IDE cable have come partly unplugged at the motherboard or something simple like that?

 

[nick1985]

no, its plugged in...

 

[nick1985]

argh...

 

[Markfw]

I just had the same thing happen to me (a first, this was weird) However in my case, I was switching DVD-RW drives like crazy on Win2k, and then tried to install the Sony software on my DRU-500
and then the next boot all hell broke loose. My experience from then on sounds like yours. Then I re-formatted, and installed from scratch, and it now works !!!! Strange.......

 

[pecel]

Try change with different cable.
Swap around the primary and secondary IDE.
swap around between master and slave.

btw, how many IDE devices on his comp?

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I just had the same thing happen to me (a first, this was weird) However in my case, I was switching DVD-RW drives like crazy on Win2k, and then tried to install the Sony software on my DRU-500
and then the next boot all hell broke loose. My experience from then on sounds like yours. Then I re-formatted, and installed from scratch, and it now works !!!! Strange.......

how did you re-install windows when your drives didnt work???