Windows XP Home won't recognize CD-Rom and DVD drive

[suspectbanana]

My friend has an E-Machines (don't laugh) computer with the following specs:

Athlon XP 1900+
512 mb PC2100
60 gig HDD
Samsung cd/rw
Samsung dvd rom

He just moved into a new place and he goes to set up his computer. He boots for the first time, to install a Lexmark printer/scanner/copier and found that the cd-rom and dvd-rom wasn't being recognized by Windows. He called EMachines tech support and they took him through the basic troubleshooting steps (safe mode, opening the case and reseating IDE cables) but to no avail. So, he ended up taking the computer to CompUSA (again, don't laugh) and let them have it for the week.

He gets a call from them saying that the problem is software related and they want to wipe the HDD and reinstall Windows. My friend balks and they told him they will call EMachines and get back to him.

This "solution" seems somewhat drastic and I'm getting the feeling that the CUSA tech rep has no idea what he's talking about.

I checked out the system a little before he took it in to CUSA and the BIOS recognizes the drives. Both drives are also powered as they spin up when you put a disc in. However, Windows refuses to acknowledge their existance and in the Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager tab, there are two yellow exclamation points saying, "Windows has successfully loaded the drivers but cannot find the hardware," or something like that.

So, any way for my friend to fix this problem without letting the goons at CUSA wipe his HDD? Is there any advice anyone can give aside from "Don't buy EMachines" and "Don't go to CUSA for tech support?"

My friend and I appreciate the help.

 

[cheetoden]

This helped when it happened to me.

Fix

Hope this helps.

 

[redbeard1]

Though their means may seem somewhat brutish, they are probably right that it is a software issue. Usually if your getting errors like that, it has to do with the ide controller. It may be recognized properly but something has corrupted it's settings when it comes to the primary or secondary controller. You can try and remove the ide controller from the device manager and let windows reinstall it, and see if that fixes it. There is an off chance that his ide cable is bad. Did he try a different one when they had him troubleshoot?

Does he have a restore disc from emachines that he could reload it himself, and save some cash?

 

[AKA]

Follow cheetoden advice to fix this issue.

Very common problem in WinXP.


Also check device manager and uninstall the cdrom drives if they are present (they most likely wont be) and also uninstall the ide controller they are on in the device manager (might not let you because of parent device) .

This should fix it.