[Slami]

Hello everyone, my wife was trying to sync her pocket pc phone with my PC (running Windows XP SP2) and half way through she aborted!! She did have a disc in the d Drive at the time (provided by the phone provider). Since then the D and E drives are not visible. I tried doing a system restore and initially I saw the devices in Window Explorer but could not access them (error message of I/O error). I then tried the Device Manager and saw them there but when I did an update (from the right clicking option) they disappeared from the device manager!! I have tried doing a system restore further back but still I cannot see the drives (I think I shouldn't have pressed the update)

I am at a loss and not sure what to do next as I don't want to make matters worse.

I've recently bought the PC a couple of weeks ago and there is no information on what the make of drives are

I hope someone can help me out here

[Slami]

I did a bit of digging around and on looking at the Event Viewer I found the following message:

The device 'DVDRW 18X18X12X SCSI CdRom Device' (SCSI\CdRom&Ven_DVDRW&Prod_18X18X12X&Rev_ZA32\5&2cd13f55&0&010) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

I went to the Help and Support Center and got the following information:

Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 12
Source: PlugPlayManager
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: ERR_SURPRISE_REMOVAL_2
Message: The device '%1' (%2) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.

Explanation
A device was removed from the system before the Safely Remove Hardware applet in the system tray was run.


User Action
To safely remove a device

Open the Safely Remove Hardware applet, select the device, and then click Stop.
A window prompts you to confirm the device or devices that you want to stop.
Now it is safe to remove the device.



So I think what I need to do is to reinstall the DVD and CD drives. Am I right in my assumption and if so what is the easiest way to add them? I cannot find the 'add hardware' section in Control Panel

[bonk]

Try this first

Download CDgone to your desktop.

Right click and choose Extract All,
open folder and double click on cdgone.reg file

Do Not Click on EditReg.reg file

Restart your PC

[Slami]

Hello bonk I ran the cdgone.reg file but I still have no CD and DVD drive.

What I find surprising is that XP does not recognise the hardware being plugged in. I assume it is because the uninstall was messsed up. On boot up I get the following message that passes through quickly: 'detect drives done no any drives found' (XP's grammar not mine)
So I think I will have to:

open the PC and unplug the drives
bootup
shutdown
plug drives back in
bootup and hope XP recognises that there is 'new' hardware there

Does anyone have any comments or other suggestions?

[bonk]

Try what you said and post back

[nicotine13]

same thing happend at my moms house with her dell, it stopped recognizing both drives and keyboard. Tech guy came out and replaced the mobo that he claimed was bad, didn't fix it.....to this day we still cant figure out the problem. Even bought new drives and still no fix. I know this probably isn't helpful......just commenting on the situation.

[Slami]

Well, I disconnected my CD & DVD drive booted up and then shutdown followed by reconnecting the drives and booting up. No difference! Still can't see them. I also went into the BIOS to see if the bIOS knows anything about the drives and there is nothing. So I think maybe the drivers for CD/DVD have gone? Would I be correct in this assumption?

If so where can I get some generic drivers fow windows XP? I'm looking for generic as I actually don't know the make of the dVD and CD drives. I've just bought the PC and there is no information in the literature about the drives.

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated

[Slami]

Looking into this further. I hadn't installed my printer yet so I thought I should check if XP recognises new hardware when I plug the printer in. It doesn't, so there is something wrong with the plugandplay side of things. Still none the wiser on how to resolve it

[Slami]

Plug and Play was a red herring. XP does not recognise CD and DVD h/w

Could deletion of the .ini file cause this? As XP does not know of the existence of the CD and DVD drives the drivers don't come into play so I think it must be at a bais level, i.e the ini file or something like that. How would I check if the ini file is there and where it is/called etc.

Again any help appreciated

[just_a_nobody]

Maybe try this site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/en-us