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windows won't recognize cd-rw and/or dvd drive

2K views 21 replies 7 participants last post by  DerekSweet 
#1 ·
I have a DVD drive and CD-RW drive, with the DVD drive being the master and the CD-RW being the slave. I've had these two hooked up together since March and they have been fine. However, recently I have been having problems with both drives.

Lately my CD-RW has not been detected by Windows upon booting up. Sometimes the DVD drive isn't detected as well. As I type this, Windows isn't detecting either one.

Is there any way I can fix this so both of them always remain detected? It really is annoying to boot up a computer and not be able to use the cd drives..
 
#3 ·
Hi – welcome to TSG.

Go to device manager and check the secondary IDE bus under Hard disc controllers. See if there are any yellow exclamation marks or red Xs. You might try just highlighting only the secondary IDE, select “Remove” at the bottom of the device manager box, OK and reboot. Windows should reload the channel.

Compaqs are usually initially set up for cable select instead of master/slave. It should work either way but it is a computer after all so try setting them both to cable select if the secondary IDE install doesn’t help.
 
#4 ·
You might try reinstalling your IDE drivers. In control panel/system/device manager, take out the entries under hard disk controllers, then reboot, windows should reinstall the drivers. Some motherboards have specific IDE drivers for the chipset, some just use the Microsoft drivers. You will need the disk for the IDE drivers if the ones installed are not from Microsoft. Do both the cd drives work correctly when they are detected? Another test is to boot from a win98 startup disk, enable cdrom support, and see if the drives work with the DOS drivers. If they do, the problem is probably with the Windows IDE drivers
 
#5 ·
It wouldn't let me remove the secondary IDE controller, so I removed the one beneath it - VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller. I rebooted the computer and it detected the DVD drive but not the CD-RW drive.

IIRC, when I first installed the DVD drive, I tried to put both drives as 'cable select', but it didn't work. I suppose I could try again..
 
#8 ·
hey i have the same problem. but the cd-rom drive icon isnt showing up in my computer. when u try to remove the secondary IDE Contrell does it say that it wouldnt let u remove it because of some multi-function parent. i dont know what that means. plz tell me more.
 
#12 ·
I would try running the cd drives one at a time, see if you can isolate it to one drive. It could be that one of the drives is going bad, a software error, bad cable,or a bad controller on the board. Try making the other drive the master, or put it on the bus with the hard drive and see if it gets detected. There are quite a few Microsoft knowledge base articles about this problem, none of which have ever been much help to me, but you might search their site for them.
 
#14 ·
I just tried making the CD-RW master and the DVD slave, but it still would only detect the DVD drive. I also tried different cables, but it didn't work either.

And no, I haven't messed with BIOS. My BIOS settings are the defaults.

I'm getting desperate here. This problem is annoying!
 
#15 ·
I would say that all the evidence points to a bad cdrw drive. You might be able to upgrade the drive to new firmware, whether that would help I dont know. I tried that on a scsi cdrw that would not detect in Windows (bios saw the drive with no problem), but it did not help. Were there any problems with the cdrw before it wouldn't detect? You might try the cdrw on another computer, or try a different cdrom/cdrw/dvd on your computer in combination with the DVD drive. You would seem to have eliminated cables, drivers, or a bad controller. If the drive is still under warranty (usually a year from the manufacturer) I would try to get it replaced
 
#16 ·
The CD-RW drive worked fine until just a week or two ago. I had a game CD in my DVD drive when I restarted the computer and that's when it automatically updated my settings to just one drive.

My CD-RW drive isn't under warranty anymore, so I can't exchange it for a new one. I have tried putting the drive in another computer before and it worked fine.

I heard re-installing Windows might make it detect the CD-RW drive again, but I would rather not do that since I have already formatted my hard drive 4-5 times before.
 
#17 ·
Well, I'm pretty much out of answers. Try running start/run/regedit, then edit/find and look for "noide" (no quotes). Delete the key if you find it, then reboot. You could reinstall windows over the top of your current setup, or install windows to a new directory to get a fresh install and a new registry. Dont know if that will help. Does the bios see the drive before you get into windows? If not, could be a bad power connector from the power supply
 
#20 ·
Just thought I should update everyone:

My CD burner is finally being detected. It appears that Windows detects it whenever it wants, which apparently is not that often. Still, I'm glad that it has been found now.

Thanks to all who tried to help.
 
#21 ·
Did you try using just 1 drive as Secondary/Master all by itself without the other connected by the power+ribbon cables as swwelh sugested. If not, do it for the CD-Rom for a day and then the CD-RW for a day to see if it is an intermittant problem with either one that glitches out both.
 
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