Topic awaiting preservation: Dead Drive!! Assistance!!

This is a tale of a boy named Willibong a long long time ago:

"... skipping by he was along the river until he stumbled upon a lepricon. Oh joy, he thought, now he could follow him over the rainbow and take his treasure with which he would be oh so happy.

So follow he did skipping from tree to tree until they reached the end of the rainbow. Now with so much joy he plunged out of the bushes only to find the lepricon ready for him! He pounced on to him but landed in this PC! Oh My, thought poor Willibong, and oh my it was for the a**ho** lepricon left his mark.

He had somehow managed to make poor Willibongs CD Drive dissappear! Now poor Willibong no more plays those songs and games he loves so much let alone install something. Poor Poor Willibong."

If for some weird and wacky reason you could not understand all above, read below

I woke up yesterday to find my CD Drive... gone!!! Actually it's there but crappy Windows nor stupid DOS pick it up. Is a formatting necessary cause in the Device Manager say's there's a Registry Error?? Need Assistance.

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Download/Install CD drivers?

What Windows OS?
XP does not even have DOS and most flavours of DOS will not recognize a CD drive unless drivers are installed specifically for DOS on your boot disk.

This sounds like a hardware prob. Open the case, there should be 2 connectors - one to power the drive and one for data..push them both in nice and snug and pray that was it.

Nope already did all that. I'm using XP, I've had this CD/DVD/Burner for like 4 months now and it worked perfectly. It's not the type that needs to be updated with new drivers now and then. Two days ago I woke up to find it gone vanished!!! It's like a Stephen King movie come to life!!

I don't think this is a hardware problem. Because if it was then I wouldn't be able to see it in the startup of the system, you know Master/Slave Drives. There it's in the right place. As Windows starts it's gone. I opened the Device Manager and it said there was an "... unexpected registry error [code 19]... ". This thing's really freakin' me out because like two months ago my brother's PC was attacked by that blo**y Worm and me being on a network got infected too. But the PC was working fine until now that is...

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(Edited by templar654 on 07-28-2004 02:15)

ADDENDUM:

Ah! I just read your last post a little more carefully - so now I know two things:

1) Everything I said about checking the BIOS is redundant (sorry about that), and you are right that it is unlikely to be a hardware problem.

2) The code 19 error suggests that the configuration info for the device is corrupted in the registry (rather than the drivers - code 31 - and usually caused by the removal of third-party CD-burning software). It is covered by Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 270008 - follow the instructions there and post the result? you can also find a useful page here.

I'll leave the rest in below, just in case.

ADDENDUM ENDUM
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Have you recently unplugged/re-plugged the drive in question, or installed another drive on the same IDE channel (so that they are sharing the same cable)? It might be worth checking if the master/slave jumpers are correct. If both drives are set to the same, or a cable-select jumpered device is not correctly plugged (connected as cable-selected master while the other is set as master, for instance), your PC will not correctly detect the drive(s).

One drive should be set to Master, the other to Slave. Alternatively, you could set them both to Cable-Select.
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Try checking your BIOS to see if it is able to detect the Drive there. If you are unable to detect the drive in the BIOS and you are sure the cables are fine, then it is probably time to buy a new one.

Try disconnecting then re-connecting the drive, then check the BIOS again - if there is an 'autodetect' option for the drive, select that.

If you haven't another drive on the same channel, try moving the drive to another position on the cable and check again.

See if you can beg/borrow another drive to test on the cable, and another cable to test with either drive, just in case. If the other drive is not detected in the BIOS with either cable, then it is safe to say that your mainboard (or its IDE controller) may be the problem.

If the other drive works then, again, it is probably time to buy a new one.
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If everything seems fine in the BIOS:

Have you checked Device Manager (System Properties > Hardware > Device Manager) to see if the drivers are actually installed. If they are present but displaying a little red cross, then the device has been disabled (somehow) - right-click and select 'enable'.

If they are present and displaying yellow " ! " symbol, then the drive is being detected but the drivers have failed - still could be a hardware problem, but at least you know it is being detected.

*While you are there, make sure that there are no errors displayed for your IDE drivers - or anything else for that matter*

Try removing the drivers, then 'scan for hardware changes' again.

*If they refuse to budge (a message along the lines of "...driver may be required to boot [something or other]" pops up), reboot into safe mode and try removing the drivers there.
Reboot and see if Windows XP detects the drive and re-installs the drivers (displaying an icon in the system tray, and an info. balloon to say that "Windows has detected new hardware and..." so on.*

If Windows attempts to install the drivers and fails, then try downloading the manufacturer's own driver set (most supply their own from websites, though they are usually not WHQL certified - boo-bloody-hoo). If these succeed, then it is possible that Windows' own drivers have become corrupted - this could signify a problem elsewhere.

If these do not succeed either, then...

...buy a new one!

(Edited by White Hawk on 07-28-2004 03:45)

Ok straight forward... I've done most of that, I plugged/unplugged the drive a number of times to check but nothing... I even tried using my brothers drive and mysteriously it too wasn't there?? Plus there isn't a red cross on the drive but an exclamation mark in the D-Manager. I haven't tried reinstalling the driver because well it's on CD... go figure!! I'm searchin' online right now for it. But I doubt it'll work either. I'm guessing the built in ones are corrupt... *sigh* I wish I had a Mac!!!

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*Dammit - what happened to double-post prevention?*

(Edited by White Hawk on 07-28-2004 03:50)

Hey, come back, you just missed me!

quote:

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ADDENDUM:

Ah! I just read your last post a little more carefully - so now I know two things:

1) Everything I said about checking the BIOS is redundant (sorry about that), and you are right that it is unlikely to be a hardware problem.

2) The code 19 error suggests that the configuration info for the device is corrupted in the registry (rather than the drivers - code 31 - and usually caused by the removal of third-party CD-burning software). It is covered by Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 270008 - follow the instructions there and post the result? you can also find a useful page here.

I'll leave the rest in below, just in case.

ADDENDUM ENDUM

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*sigh* nope... didn't work

WHY DIDN'T I MAKE BACKUP!!!!

I guess the only sane thing left to do is... *gulp* format

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(Edited by templar654 on 07-28-2004 04:14)

(Edited by templar654 on 07-28-2004 04:23)

I'd have gone with the System Restore feature, or failing that, the CD-boot Windows Repair. At least you don't lose your data, and you just need to re-install the latest patches, etc...

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh crap!!!

heh heh was I supposed to restart after that registry change

ummmm it's ok now, thanks for the help

I shut my eyes in order to see | Online Portfolio | Journal

Cool, I hope I was of some help.

(Edited by White Hawk on 07-29-2004 04:30)