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Tech: Windows ME help, please!
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Subject: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Hamish Date: 23 May 05 - 03:57 PM Hi. I've been a bit silly. In disinfecting my daughter's PC I deleted the dll which controls the CD drive. So if any of you lovely people are running Windows ME, and could get a file out of their windows\system directory and e-mail it to me, I might be able to fix the problem. I hope. The file is windows\system\nfcd.dll Thanks, in anticipation. -- Cheers Hamish Currie http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lombardy/mailform.htm actually, in view of my request, I'll spell out my e-mail address a bit more helpfully: it's my_first_name dot my_surname at tiscali.co.uk |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 May 05 - 06:01 PM There are sites that will let you download dll files. I looked at several and they weren't able to provide this one. I even have system restore disks from my stolen HP Pavilion that came with ME on it, but I can't open the files (these disks were made for only that particular model). Good luck finding it. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 23 May 05 - 06:11 PM nfcd.dll doesn't even turn up a single hit on Google. Are you sure you have spelt it correctly? Also, the dll may not be one on the Windows install. Do you know what the make/model of the device is? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 May 05 - 06:32 PM Did you ask your daughter if she has any backup disks or a full backup of the computer somewhere? You can cherry-pick this file from there. Or did the computer manufacturer provide system disks? In view of our lack of luck in finding even a trace of this file, your best bet (after checking spelling, as Jon suggests) is to go to the web site for the computer manufacturer and start a search from there, if the ME came installed on the computer. They may have extra files available in archival form. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: mandoleer Date: 23 May 05 - 07:02 PM I run Me on my main machine, but I ain't got that file on it. Was the CD drive installed after the machine was originally set up? In which case, it'll be on the disk that came with it. In a lot of cases, an Atapi disk will set up a CD drive - quite a few people have them, just ask around. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Rasener Date: 24 May 05 - 02:08 AM I had the same problem, coudn't find it. The nearest I found was MFCD30.DLL I sent a copy to Hamish incase that is the one needed. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 May 05 - 02:43 AM Many Windows .dll files are "dynamic" files that are created by the system based on device driver info and other details of the specific user setup. A common fix for .dll file corruption is just to delete the .dll and let Windows create a new one the next time you open something that uses it. A very few .dll files have fixed content and are "generic" enough to be copied from one machine to another, but even when the filename is the same the needed file content may differ from one machine to another. Installing an appropriate device driver will usually provide the correct .dll files, or the information needed by the system to create them - and to edit them in response to system changes. WinME System Information (Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools|System Information, or Start|Run|Msinfo32.exe) may possibly identify the manufacturer and model number of the CD device, even if it's not operable. (WinME SI also has a sort of mini System Restore in the "History" section that might let you roll-back to an operable earlier condition, if the history files haven't been deleted.) If you can get a manufacturer and model number for the CD device, either the mfr's or your OEM computer maker's website should have a current driver, and installing a new driver should create any needed .dll file(s). Any CD-ROM device more than about 2 years old needs new drivers anyway, since changes to the CD-ROM DISK specification(s) have made changes to the drivers necessary to maintain compatibility with the several "flavors" of disks extant now. If the .dll isn't on install disks, and isn't easily found on the web, it means that the system has to create it when you install something else. I'd go for a new CD device driver. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Rasener Date: 24 May 05 - 03:16 AM John Don't know how you know all this, but you are truly the expert. Les |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 May 05 - 04:05 AM Les: Microsoft Knowledge Base Advanced Search Options All you have to do is look. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Rasener Date: 24 May 05 - 04:53 AM John and there was me thinking that it was all from your own head :-) I am aware of this link, having used it myself in the past, but it may be useful for other people. Don't need to use it much these days. Cheers Les |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Jeremiah McCaw Date: 24 May 05 - 10:40 AM Grretings Hamish, Hope all other things are well with you. Couldn't find any "nfcd.dll" on my own machine (sure it doesn't stand for "no frikkin' CD"?). Best idea I can give you is to upgrade that system from Windows ME to XP. ME is/was a lousy product. If you've been having lockups and screen freezes that you've been blaming on individual programs - that's ME at work. XP is everything ME should have been and more. For once I've been delighted with a Microsoft product. XP'll probably fix the CD problem on boot-up. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Richard Bridge Date: 24 May 05 - 12:14 PM That file is not on my ME system either. Now, me, I'm with good Ned Ludd and Captain Swing, and will not use XP until I absolutely have to and even then I may take a deep breath and try Linux first. I've got 3 machines running fine (ish) on a network, one with 95, one with 98SE and the other with ME. No-one has yet convinced me XP is not full of spyware. Certainly a friend of mine running a hooky XP (personally, I don't do that) has just been bombed by an XP update that had a grenade in it and it has really freaked most of his system, he can't even get into some of his data files by using his existing drive as a slave on another machine... I have another friend who had a 98 system that worked fine. It was nicked and with his insurance money he got an XPsystem and I have lost count of the afternoons I have wasted formatting C for him since. He could maintain his own system in 98 - but XP beats him (and he has a 2:1 in phlosophy as well) although I have to say that since we stopped trying to use other antivirus and bought him Panda (which I also use because neither Norton nor McAfee works properly with Outlook) and put him on Mozilla his machine has mostly worked. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 24 May 05 - 12:31 PM Who manufactored your CD drive? Sony? Mitsbishi? etc.
You should have an instalation floppy with their name and drivers
Look in the box.
You are likely to find a generic here: |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Hamish Date: 24 May 05 - 01:34 PM Um, thanks for all these hints and tips. Yes, I have tried: * system restore (it wouldn't) * reinstalling the CD driver (didn't fix the problem) * looking all over the Windows and CD install disks for the specific file (didn't find anything) * searching on the MS and via Google (ditto) ...and upgrading to XP isn't a runner cos it's an old machine not big enough and not upgradeable enough... ....however! I haven't yet tried: * installing the MFCD30.DLL which the Villain mailed me (thanks!) * John in Kansas's idea about the OEM computer maker's website ...and if I can crow-bar my doughter off the PC I'll try (hopefully one but maybe) both of those ideas. Thanks, guys! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Stilly River Sage Date: 24 May 05 - 01:39 PM Look in your system to see what hardware it is running then follow Gargoyle's lead and you should be set. Start -> Control Panel -> System > Hardware -> Device Manager -> Voila! there it should be. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 24 May 05 - 02:15 PM mfcd30.dll isn't directly related to CD players - it's one of the versions of the MS Foundation Class libraries for use with early versions of Visual C++ programming. So it's not likely to solve the problem. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 May 05 - 03:24 PM Hamish - As SRS says, Device Manager and/or System Information should tell you what's not working, and perhaps why. One or both of these may give you the mfr and model number for your CD device, and you need specific info on this to look for a current driver for your device. I would strongly urge you to get a new one from the CD or computer maker if you can find one, since the drivers on any WinME disk will be obsolete. The disks themselves are different now. A NORMAL PROCEDURE for a missing or defective device is to go to Device Manager and DELETE the device. When you reboot, Plug And Play (PnP) should detect a "new device" and ask you for whatever drivers etc it needs to install it. It will probably ask for your WinME installation disk(s), but if you can find a driver for your CD device you can tell it to use one you've downloaded from the drive mfr or from your OEM computer mfr. If PnP doesn't detect the device, you go back to Device Manager and click on something like "add new device" or "add new hardware," and tell the system to look for it. Thus far, what we really know(?) is that: 1. your CD device doesn't work. 2. you just did an AV cleanup. 3. something has told you that a file, nfcd.dll, is missing. 4. nobobdy else seems to have the file nfcd.dll. You haven't really said what told you that you need nfcd.dll, but a possible scenario here goes: a. Some virus infections write a line into the Registry to reload themselves every time you reboot. The line usually calls up a .dll that runs the actual virus installation. Sometimes the .dll itself contains the infection, and sometimes it "calls" some other file to do the actual virus installation. b. If the AV treatment removes the virus and/or the .dll reinstall file, but doesn't fix the Registry, you'll get an error message - something like "cannot find nfcd.dll" every time you boot, or possibly every time you try to use something that was affected by the virus. c. Since AV normally expects to delete or quarantine anything infected before it gets installed the normal AV routines don't look for "non viral installed instructions" and remove them, so this happens fairly often on machines that were infected while there was no AV running, and are scanned later - after the viral installation was completed. d. Since the AV treatment already removed everything it recognized as "viral" a rescan with AV will not tell you that this is an "inactive fragment left over from a previous infection." An error message due to a removed virus is annoying, but it affirms that the virus itself is gone and isn't being reinstalled every time you reboot. Removing the error message usually requires a Regedit, so you should just ignore the message until you're certain that's what's causing it. If deleting and reinstalling your CD drive doesn't help: If you have your WinME installation disk(s), some Windows versions let you go to Control Panel, Add/Remove programs, and if you select "Windows" will ask if you want an "install" or a "check for missing or damaged files." I don't know whether WinME includes this "check" ability, so perhaps someone who has WinME could let us know. If the "check for missing or damaged" feature is present, it usually is safe enough to run without much concern about losing data or non-Win programs (but backup is always good if you have a place to put stuff). If a needed file is missing, this procedure usually will put it back; but a "dynamic .dll" that gets edited to suit the installation and is corrupted may be missed, so it's not 100 percent. This procedure may get your CD device working, but it will NOT likely remove a .dll call from a prior infection, so you'll still get the "cannot find..." error. If the "check for missing or damaged" feature isn't there, you can usually do a reinstall Windows without danger to data files, but you would probably need to reinstall some - perhaps many - other programs. The number of such other programs, and whether you have install disks for all of them would be important, and I'd recommend not jumping into a complete reinstall until other possibilities have been exhausted. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Hamish Date: 28 May 05 - 05:34 PM Well, thanks again to you all for your suggestions, especially John in Kansas. I've tried just about all of the various ideas, but haven't had any success, I'm afraid. Ah, well. I really don't want to do a complete reinstall, so plan (f) will prevail for the while. (Plan (f) is to do without the CD drive!!!) ~8^( |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: GUEST,Al Date: 29 May 05 - 12:23 PM For what it's worth, my problems with windows ME didn't go away until I gave away the computer and got an XP machine. XP is not without problems, but they are way easier to live with than those pesky ME problems. One more thing you might try before accepting my advice: threaten your machine by taking it upstairs and holding it near an open window. Then plug back in and reboot. This sometimes works for me. Al |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 29 May 05 - 02:46 PM Hamish – I've about exhausted my list of creative suggestions for this one. Deleting an existing device in Device Manager, and installing (re-installing) from scratch should always work. (It said so in a book I used to have, I think. I know my memory's good, 'cause I can remember lots of things that never even happened.) WinME is sort of a strange OS, and I skipped over it and went straight from Win98SE to Win2K and WinXP. Consensus in the tech channels is that almost anything is better than WinME, but of course that's just gossip. About the only difference I've found documented between Win98SE and WinME is that both were designed to use drivers that work through the OS "protection layer." Win98SE retained a fall-back support for "real mode" drivers – for devices that are accessed directly by programs. Real mode support was removed completely in WinME so that all device access goes through Windows. That really shouldn't be a visible difference for users, since you always want the driver that's meant for the device and for the OS you're using, and WinME drivers should be plentiful by now. Your Plan (f) may be the right one for you to use now. Even if you don't plan to do anything more about the CD drive now, you may want to visit and bookmark the Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition: OS-Specific Help Site. WinME and older Microsoft OS have been threatened with "non-support" for some time now, but there have been occasional "extensions" of support of some kinds. This link is where you'd look to find out what the support status is for WinME, and to get whatever updates and (especially) security fixes are new for it. (Win98SE users could look here too, although there may be a similar Win98-specific site as well.) There are also links in the sidebar to info on common problems, although the emphasis now has shifted to the security patches. "Hardware and Software" might be a good one to browse if/when you decide to get back to the CD problem, or when something new pops up. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Hamish Date: 29 May 05 - 02:55 PM Thanks, John & Al: I did get a driver from one of the afore-mentioned sites, and it wouldn't install unless I was in "real-DOS mode". Going into that mode is possible: but it looked a bit hairy, and with no guarantee that the down-loaded driver would actually work, I'm staying with plan (f) for now. (I also tried the threatening it with an open upstairs window, which was even more successful than all my other attempts. Alas, not successful in an absolute sense.) Plan (h) is buy a new machine. (It's all my brother's fault: he bought it for my mum, who found it surplus to requirements: but that's another story. She needs a new operating system, now.) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 29 May 05 - 03:20 PM One of WinME's peculiarities is that there is NO REAL MODE SUPPORT in the OS. According to some articles I've seen, WinME is the only system Mickey ever released that can't even make it's own boot floppy because the "DOS" start up is in real mode and the OS blocks copying the real mode files anywhere(?). The usual method, if you really need real mode, is to use a Win98SE boot floppy -- something that apparently every WinME user should have tucked away somewhere. Another WinME peculiarity is that it was the first OS Microsoft released that came ONLY on CD, and the CD wasn't bootable. If you had a laptop with only one ext media drive bay, you couldn't boot from the CD to install WinME, and if you booted from the floppy drive you couldn't put the CD in to install it. This was, of course, before "hot-swappable" drives were common in laptops. There was a workaround for the installation problem, that I've been looking at to see if it really defines the "minimum requirements" to make a CD drive recognizable to WinME. It tells you what is necessary to make the Win98-booted system see the drive; but I haven't figured out enough about what changes the WinME installation may make to tell whether that's the right setup for WinME after the instl is done, or if the WinME installation adds some other necessities. See it at Cannot Install Windows Millennium Edition on Computer with Only One Removable Drive if you're brave. With the machine at hand, it probably would make better sense than just abstract puzzling about it. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Jim McLean Date: 29 May 05 - 06:38 PM I'm afraid I don't understand. I can buy a new CD drive here in London for 15 GBP and install it on any PC running any operating system without using a driver and it works OK. I do this regularly for clients. What am I not understanding from the question? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 29 May 05 - 07:33 PM Jim, I haven't read through all the posts here but last time I read, we don't know what the CD drive is... It could be an odd one... You do make a good point though. CD drives are cheap, easy to install, etc. at £15, it may make more sense to install a new one than waste hours chasing up drivers if that is what is needed (something not easy to do with a dll name that google doesn't recognise and not even a clue to the PC which may give a clue to the drive if that is unknown...). |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 29 May 05 - 09:52 PM Jim McLean (and Jon) - You can do what you indicate if you have a clean OS installation, with default drivers already present. The WinME system in question was "cleaned" of a bunch of existing viral crud, and the user thinks something too much may have been deleted. Since the CD drive doesn't respond, that's probably a good assumption. It appears that the system tells him it can't find a .dll, and the assumption was made that the missing .dll was what prevents the CD drive from working. My guess is that the "missing" .dll is a leftover from a past - and disabled but not completely removed - virus. (see at Date: 24 May 05 - 03:24 PM) It's probably something else missing that prevents the CD drive from coming up, but if the system doesn't know the drive is there, it won't ask for the missing piece. You can install a new CD drive "without any drivers" if certain default drivers are already there, and they will be there on almost any machine that's running normally. In addition, any current or recent device should be PnP, and the system can make any necessary driver installations - often without you noticing that it's being done. The default driver (interface) for most CDs is mscdex.exe, and if it's present most CD drives are at least recognized. The basic mscdex.exe driver is a real-mode driver though, and WinME does not support any real mode operations (where programs can access hardware directly, without going through the OS). WinME (and Win98SE) apparently used a default virtual driver, oakcdrom.sys, with switch settings possibly depending somewhat on the specific OS. Many CD drives look for mscdex.exe, so the usual Win98SE installation required a Config.sys and Autoexec.bat to call mscdex.exe and oakcdrom.sys to get them into RAM at boot time and sometimes to provide proper "aliasing" so the right one gets used. The link at 29 May 05 - 03:20 PM details some of the problems with getting a good CD setup for a Win98SE boot, with CD-ROM support, when there is no OS on the drive; so this should be a "minimalist" CD-capable setup. The instructions are for how to prepare a machine for WinME installation though, and is unclear about whether the actual WinME installation adds some other pretty stuff for the CD drive. A few newer CD drives use a modified driver that can get along without it, but for older and "basic" CD drives, mscdex.exe must be present in C:\, and typically is called with a /d:mscd001 switch. It will always be there for any default Windows installation - except possibly for WinME. To get virtual access to the CD drive in Win98SE, the file oakcdrom.sys must be present on C:\. It, or an appropriate .vxd and/or .dll will always be present in any default Windows installation, if it's needed. To "turn on" the required CD-ROM access, for Win98 at least, there must be an Autoexec.bat file on C:\ containing the line: "mscdex.exe /d:mscd001" and there must be a Config.sys file on C:\ containing the line: "device=oakcdrom.sys /d:mscd001". Because WinME prohibits all real mode operations, at least in original WinME versions you can't make a boot floppy from the WinME installation disk. You need to get a Win98SE boot floppy, and use it to boot (real mode) and get the installation of WinME started in the laptop situation described at the link. The mscdex.exe may let the machine read the CD drive (real mode) to start the installation, or may use the oakcdrom.sys to access via the virtual layer. The oakcdrom.sys apparently is necessary to let the machine switch to virtual mode to continue without real mode access when WinME takes over. The "minimum conditions" above are for Win98SE, since that's how you boot for the WinME installation for the condition cited at the link. WinME installation may make changes, so it's not clear that it's a "minimum condition" for a WinME sytem that's already installed. The WinME installation may add .dll and/or .vxd files to supplement or replace the "basic CD drivers," and may or may not remove or edit "redundant" Autoexec.bat and/or Config.sys files. Perhaps someone with a working WinME system could comment on whether the files listed above are there(?). An additional complication is that the Specification for how CDs are formatted has been changed several times since WinME (or Win98 and Win2K in most cases) came out. There has been at least one change of some significance since WinXP was fairly new. Once Spec change about 2-3 years ago significantly expanded the "writable area," so that wider travel of the "head" in the CD drive is required. At least one maker warns that using a "new disk" in CD burners with the old driver(s) can cause hardware damage to the drive. In readers, it's more likely you'd just get an "incompatible disk" error, although damage can't be ruled out. These "spec changes" are the reason for the frequent mentions in this thread that you should get a current driver if you need to install a driver. Note that the "new" drive you just bought may have been assembled a couple of years ago, and the default drivers you have from any OS installation probably arent' really current. Most CD drive makers will have websites with useful utilities. If you cannot identify your own CD device as to maker and model number (both usually needed), Pioneer has an "ID utility" that will often get what you need even for non-Pioneer drives. The file needed is usually called something like CHKRW.EXE, but it's somewhat OS specific, and it also seems to move around on their site, so you'll need to dig around to find the version you need. If you have difficulty finding them, you can start at Pioneer. This utility should identify maker, model number, and firmware version for any Pioneer drive or for any PnP drive by most other makers. (It may also tell you some interesting stuff about your hard drives etc.) Of course, it would be better to start with the people who made your drive, and SysInfo and/or Device Manager should give you enough ID to do that, unless you have something pretty unusual. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 30 May 05 - 04:42 AM There is also this MSKB article for non working CD drive with ME. It's an easy thing to do (setting in control panel), so might be worth checking your settings: Unable to Access CD-ROM Drive After Installing Windows 98/Me. Mick |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 May 05 - 06:18 AM I must admit my Win boot disk to get me CD access is a WIN 95 one.... I think you need/ it is advisable to have himem.sys in config.sys. Mine is Autoexec.bat /MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000 config.sys DEVICE=\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD000 (all files are on the floppy) I don't know what MTMCDAI is for or where I picked it up but it has worked on every CD I've tried. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows ME help, please! From: JohnInKansas Date: 30 May 05 - 11:53 AM Jon - Just by similarity to the "device=oakcdrom.sys /d:mscd001" line suggested by the laptop how-to KB article (and some others) I would expect that MTMCDAI.SYS with the same /d MSCD000(?) (it's usually MSCD001?) has the same function. The MTMCDAI.SYS is a familiar filename "form," but Mickey is pretty skimpy with details and I haven't dug into the ones of this kind. The article on getting a laptop up recommended the oakcdrom.sys, and implied that oakcdrom.sys is on a Win98 boot disk, in a "tools" section. My impression - applying significant SWAG factor - is that both are, or provide the same functions as, codexes that tell the system how to translate the bit structure of the CDs. The article assumed that the boot disk would be made directly from Win98 install disks, so you might get/use a different file for the function on a boot disk made from an installed Win98 system - especially if it's had a device-specific driver installed. In the procedure described by Mickey, you have to find and copy the oakcdrom.sys file, and there may be numerous other choices for files with similar function. Or the .sys files may be the driver and the /MSCDEX.EXE is the "codex." The requirements appear to be for a driver to "recognize" and make the connection to the device (manage the hardware), and a codex or codex-like function to "translate" the content found on the CD to the same "language" as other system data (manage the data). Two separate files, like the ones listed, are usually required, but it's hard to tell which actually does what. John |
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