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need help with CD-ROM

J

jointpleasure

Member
I have 98SE running on ECS K7S5A. Just built a month ago. When I install a CD into the CD-ROM it just spins and the computer basically comes to a halt in Windows Explorer, My computer as it does not recognize a disk has been inserted. That is unless a music, *.cda, disc is installed, then it works fine. I've tried a few different CD-ROM drives and they all do the same things. Tried all different types of CD's and the only one the drive recognizes is music CD's. Please help if you can.
 
Are the drives you are trying "high speed" CDROM's. I have had similar trouble with this in 50X+ CDROM's and using older CD program disks. That combination was always a PIA. You could actually here the CD "Skipping" in the drive. Very frustrating. I just solved it by buying a better drive instead of the "generics" I was using. Not sure it this applies in your case but thought I would mention it. I bought the Lite-On DVD/CDROM drive from NewEgg and it works great. At the time it was $30 shipped. More now. 🙁
 
Thanks for the reply. I tried all three drives in another computer and all work good including a LiteOn burner, Future Power 50X, and a Hitachi DVD. Same ribbon. Starting to believe that it may be motherboard related. Second system build with the K7S5A with the first working flawlessly.
 
Try switching the cables also. Do you have another drive, (CDRW maybe) attached also? Have you tried both with and without a second optical drive attached? It would be a good idea to check the jumpers on the drives also if you have moved them around a bit. There are a number of things (hardware related) that could cause this but I think the MB would be last. How about reloading the MB drivers? Have you tried that?
 
Originally posted by: jointpleasure
Tried everything I know. When loading the CD it doesn't even spin. The green light on the CD-Rom flickers but the disk is not spinning.
Click to expand...
If the light is flickering then it is definatly trying to read. Have you tried putting the drive on the other IDE channel; namely as a "primary Slave" to your HDD (would only work if you have only one HDD). From the looks of your specs you could try that. Make sure you set the jumper to SL (slave) on the drive and attach it to the secondary port on IDE 1. Conversly, if you want to test the MB IDE channel later on, you could place the HDD on IDE 2 to see if it will read. Now, keep in mind that you are going to throw Win98 for a loop when you do this (but not too bad) and you would have to go into the bios probably to make sure the boot order is correct, if necessary.
 
Tried hooking up the CD as the primary slave on IDE 1. The CD still didn't spin. Hooked up the Zip to the secondary IDE and it worked. Drivers are good. ??
 
Strange. Ok, you hooked it up to the primary IDE AND you had the jumper set (on the CDROM) as Slave, correct? If you did this and it still didn't work, it would tend to sound like either the BIOS isn't recognizing it and you may need to go there and "Help" it out, OR the drive is bad. However, you tried different ones and they exhibited the same behavior so that doesn't make sense.
I think it is BIOS and/or OS related; not MB or drive. Let me ask, did you have or are you using an additional optical drive, such as a CDRW and/or a DVD? If not, I think you should place the jumper back to the Master Position on the CDROM, carefully hook the cables (ribbon, sound and power) to the drive and reboot the system. Go immediately into the BIOS and see if you can get the Secondary IDE to recognize the drive correctly. You may have to either select "Detect", or in some cases there is a separate option to list it as CDROM in the BIOS. After that, save and exit the BIOS and watch the boot process on the screen. Make sure the HDD and the CDROM are detected. This will happen pretty fast so you might want to have your finger on the "pause" button if you need to. Then hit any key to continue the boot. If all is well at this point then you are down to the OS. Go into Device Manager and see what is listed under CDROM Drives. Confirm that your CDROM is listed there and that no conflicts are showing. It's been a while since I've used 98 but I think you can also check that "autorun" is selected in the CDROM properties. Just confirm it is selected. If all is well here then you should be "good to go". Test it and see.
IF there is a problem detecting the drive in the BIOS, try one of the other drives you spoke of that you tested early on and see if they can be detected. If that also fails then change the cable and try again. If that fails then you are looking at either a BIOS problem or an IDE channel problem on the MB. However, since the Zip drive worked on IDE 2, I would think that this would not be the issue.
If it is detected correctly in the BIOS but not seen in Windows then it is an OS/driver problem. Win98 has universal CDROM device drivers though, so I'm thinking that would not be the issue either.
One test I just thought of that you could try is booting with your Win98 Boot Disk. When the appropriate screen comes up to start the system WITH or WITHOUT CDROM support, select WITH. The first set of dialogue will start the detection process and you should see it identify "1" device. If it says "no device detected" then there is a problem for sure. I'm thinking it will detect it though so let this process complete until you get to the A prompt. Then, see if you can access the CDROM drive. It should be either D or E, depending upon what other drives you have installed. At the A prompt just type in D: (or E🙂 and hit enter. Then, make sure there is a program or Windows CD in the drive. At the D (or E) prompt, type in DIR and hit enter. If you get a list of files that you know are on the CD, then you know the system can properly detect and use the CDROM. Pull the Boot disk and reboot. Test again.
 
Thanks for the time you're spending helping me out. I've tried the bios thing and it does recognize it in the bios. I've booted it with the CD-ROM selected and Auto selected and it does recognize the drive. Device manager under CD-ROM shows it is working properly and there are no conflicts. I even did the boot disk thing you mentioned and beings I have the 40 gig harddrive split up in 4 partitions it shows the CD-ROM using drive H: When I stick the disk in and change the pormpt to H: it does not recognize that a disk has been put in. The abort retry fail message comes up. This ones a strange one for me as the CD-ROM's work in the other computer here. Ive tried different cables, changed around the auto notify, disconnect, DMA options around and that doesn't do the trick. Reinstalled IDE controllers, removed CD-ROM device and let it the OS (98SE) detect it and it always finds it and installed the drivers.

Unable to spin the CD even with the startup disk
 
I have to admit I'm stumped on this one. I'll give it some more thought and see if I can come up with an answer. It must be something that is staring us in the face or something we just haven't thought of. I'm concerned that it didn't read when you tried the boot disk. When the boot disk first started "working", did you see the reference I mentioned about "Number of drives=1" or "no drives detected" when it is loading the generic CDROM drivers? After selecting to "start the computer with CDROM support", it should have been one of the first things to flash on the screen.
 
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