Go Back   PCMech Forums > Hardware > Drives and Storage

Drives and Storage Hard Drives, IDE and SCSI; CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMS, RWs of all Sorts, plus Floppies, USB drives, and what-not. It's all here!

Recommended: Click Here to Run a Free Scan for PC errors

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 02-24-2004, 11:20 PM   #1
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
Question CDR/RW Drive Missing

Well I'm stumped. I've tried everything and I just can't quite figure it out. One day I boot up my desktop and the CD-RW drive just dissapeared. Out of "My Computer" that is. I went into the device manager and this is what it said (it had a little yellow exclamation mark next to it):

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)

Now I know the drive is plugged in, and it works. I booted up to SuSE to see if it was Windows or the drive itself and SuSE was able to read and write to the drive just fine. I've tried uninstalling the drive in the windows device manager as well but that didn't do any good.

I'm running Windows XP Pro on that computer with fully updated Norton AntiVirus and Norton Firewall (without SP1; due to performance issues).

The CD writer is an HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8240B (made by LG if memory servers). And it's the only cd drive installed on the system.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
__________________
Robin: Windows Media Center Edition 2004 w/SP2 | Pentium IV 2800MHz | 1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM | 100GB 5400RPM 8MB Seagate | DVD-R/RW | nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 64MB | 15" Wide XGA LCD Display [Aquamark 3 Combined: 7,043]

Tiki IV: Windows XP Professional w/SP2 | Pentium IV 1700MHz | 784MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM | 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate | DVD/CD-RW Drives | Powercolor ATI Radeon 9600PRO 256MB | 17" 12ms LG Flatron Display [Aquamark 3 Combined: 20,723]
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-24-2004, 11:27 PM   #2
Kov-Ice
Member (12 bit)
 
Kov-Ice's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Posts: 3,260
Send a message via ICQ to Kov-Ice Send a message via MSN to Kov-Ice
Would physically uninstalling/reinstalling the drive possibly help? Uninstall in device mgr while in Safe Mode, shut down, unplug drive, reboot, then shut down and reinstall. Dunno...
__________________
Kov

Are You Foldin'?
Join PCMech's Folding@Home Team and Help Save Lives! Click Here!
Kov-Ice is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 12:08 AM   #3
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
I tried that and it still wouldn't work; I also tried it in all combinations of safe mode and using a different IDE cable and Windows still refuses to acknowledge it's existence. I'm hoping I won't have to reinstall Windows but its starting to look that way. Would a new cd drive work? I know they're pretty cheap from newegg or mwave but if I got it would it work without reformatting?

Thanks for the suggestion!
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 12:23 AM   #4
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
I just tried pluggin in a CD-ROM drive and it gave me the same error. Looks like I'm stuck with a windows reinstall to me. I'll wait a couple days in case anyone can chime in with a second opinion.
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 12:51 AM   #5
oddjob
Member (10 bit)
 
oddjob's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Vancouver Canada
Posts: 771
Also try your cd-rw in someone else's computer. If it doesn't work in their comp either, it could be time for you to buy a new drive. Sometimes they just crap out, nothing you did or can do.

Look for bulging or leaking capacitors on your mobo, too. You could have a mobo problem rather than a Windows problem.

Last edited by oddjob; 02-25-2004 at 12:55 AM..
oddjob is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 01:07 AM   #6
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
I just opened up the case and everything seems to be in order. I haven't done much inside it beyond installing a firewire pci card. All the capacitors look normal, the IDE cables are all fine and I can use the cd drive perfectly from linux, and when i swapped the cd writer for the cd rom the bios recognized that and it also recognized when i put the cd writer back in.

I've also downloaded and applied all the windows updates and that didn't help anything.
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 01:18 AM   #7
oddjob
Member (10 bit)
 
oddjob's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Vancouver Canada
Posts: 771
hmmm...weird

I guess it is a Windows problem. Have you tried re-installing your IDE controller and made sure that DMA is enabled?
oddjob is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 01:40 AM   #8
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
Yup I did all that and I snooped around the BIOS and everything looked ok.

I truly despise installing Windows. I think this will be the 6th time on this PC. Maybe this time I'll get a new copy of Mandrake to install alongside it and use it instead. I'm using the machine primarily as a file, print, and backup server (I burn the backups from all the networked computers off of it; it has the fastest cd burner). And my printer does indeed work with linux, so it's just a matter of getting a copy of linux that Windows will talk to...

Computers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 01:46 AM   #9
oddjob
Member (10 bit)
 
oddjob's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Vancouver Canada
Posts: 771
Quote:
Originally posted by scalifash
Computers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
Computers: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.
oddjob is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 01:51 AM   #10
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
Quote:
Originally posted by oddjob
Computers: can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.
...or can you? *sound of gun being cocked*
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 02:19 AM   #11
glc
Forum Administrator
Staff
Premiere Member
 
glc's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Joplin MO
Posts: 24,633
You probably have a upper/lower filter issue - this happens all the time when you play with Roxio burning software and uninstall it. Easy to fix with a registry edit.

http://www.roxio.com/en/support/kb/ecdc/eez000005.jhtml

http://www.theeldergeek.com/restore_..._dvd_drive.htm
glc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-25-2004, 02:45 AM   #12
scalifash
Member (7 bit)
 
scalifash's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 90
Send a message via AIM to scalifash
THANK YOU!!!! I used Roxio's patch and despite the fact that I've never touched a piece of Roxio software it worked like a charm and I can now use my wonderful little burner :-D
scalifash is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Follow PCMech
Subscribe

Free Weekly Newsletter. Sign up and receive our free report: 20 Tips For Becoming a Technology Power User.

NAME:
EMAIL:

Latest Posts
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:24 AM.