BIG problem in WinXP (cd-rom drive icons dissapeared)

The PC in question has a cd-rw drive and a dvd rom drive, normally lettered E: and D:

When I originally installed the OS everything was as it should be.

Recently, the D: and E: drives disappeared, and I don't know what event if any caused this. Therefore, one cannot use either drive at all. Mechanically, they still work of course.

During POST, both drives are represented correctly.

Within Windows, in the hardware profile section, both drives are mentioned but with the yellow questionmark icon. Closer examination says that they are not working properly. After uninstalling and rebooting, Windows detects the hardware but states that one or more drivers is missing or currupt and back to square one.

I decided to re-install XP. Booted up from CD and ran the setup. That was a mistake because when it went to the windows portion of setup it couldnt read from the CD. I tried to copy the contents of the XP cd to the hard drive but the copy command on the recovery console will not let you move directories only single files. Now windows is stuck in trying to complete a setup and the PC is totally unusable now because of that.

So, how can I recover this installation? Any imput would be welcome and thanks in advance.

 

Did you perform a repair install or a complete install of Windows XP?

If you performed a repair install, then reboot the computer, tap f8 as it boots past post,a nd you should see a boot menu.

Select the boot option "safe mode with command prompt". This option is available from the F8 /boot menu.

Once you have loaded Safe Mode, enter:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

If you performed a repair install, this should hopefully be there,a nd you will get a restore from menu, select a previous date and reboot.

If you performed a full reinstall (format) of your existing drive, you are S.O.L. for recovery. To get booted to windows, unplug one of the drives, and try to reboot.

you can alternatively try to unplug one and plug it into the hdd cable, as a slave drive (you will need to change the jumpers on the cdrom), and see if perhaps its the SCSI controller causing the problem.

 

Okay, I'll try that.

Also I've been wondering if it would also be possible to use an old win98 boot floppy and use that version of DOS to copy the entire WinXP CD to a directory on the hard drive, then continue the setup pointing to that new directory.

 

go to device manager,find the IDE controlers remove the secondary IDE channel reboot and then they should be back..thats if there on the secondary IDE .if not remove the primary IDE

 

If the IDE controller was screwin up, would it still show up at POST?

 

i had this dissapareing cd-roms before and used to open box remove cd-roms turn computer back on the off again and plug cd-roms back in.then they worked,untill i found out that i could do the same thing by removing the ide controlers.do it and it should fix it up

 

Before you go to the trouble of re-installing Windows, check out the solution in MS-KB Q320553 and see if that gets you running again.

 

I actually searched the KB and could not find this. I need to work on my key word skills.

But I'm kinda beyond the easy, rational, well informed solution to this although the information is helpful. If I'm able to bust out of Windows continuing setup every restart, I'll implement the advice.

 

I was set to follow all the advice given. But I cannot get around the fact that WinXP wants to continue the setup from the restore that I tried. Which means it cannot go into any safe mode. Nor does 'last known good config' work.

It seems the only way to get around this is to somehow get the XP cd copied to the hard drive without going into Windows to do it.

I made a Win98 boot disk but it would not see the C: drive probably because its NTFS.

I can't use the recovery console of XP because it will not allow directory copying.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can either bust out of the windows continuing setup, or get the contents of the CD onto the hard drive? Or am I screwed?