Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?

Subject: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 03:55 PM

I've gone as far as I can with this- meaning that other than understanding some terms and actions I didn't before, I have made no progress.

My CD Rom drive has disappeared. The only drive that shows under 'My Computer' is C. The only thing I know of that I did recently that could have affected it is that I deleted MuscmMatch Jukebox the other day. I prefer the ease of Windows Media Player and both kept trying to perform so I got rid of one of them.

It may have been right after then that the CD Rom disappeared. I didn't notice that it was gone until I was trying to create a CD from 'My Library' uploaded from my Minidisc recorder and it kept telling me that the 'device' was not connected.

I have made many excursions into Dell support, Add Wiz and others. Add Wizard ends up saying that it cannot complete the task because the 'drive is corrupted or missing.'

What to do, what to do?

Waiting with bated breath - and in silence.

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 04:39 PM

First question is whether you may have played one of the recently issued Sony "DRM protected" CDs. Two separate recent issues of Sony CDs have included Digital Rights Management software that can replace the drivers - and playback programs - on your machine with Sony's own programs. Removal of the Sony Scumware, or of anything else using their substituted drivers, often disables CD and DVD drives.

The program you removed may have made a similar driver replacement, and removal of the program may have removed drivers for the device(s). Any "multimedia" program has to be suspected of including "features" that are not obvious.

The normal procedure for a "disappearing" device is to open control panel, Device Manager, and see if the device appears. If you right click on "My Computer" in Windows Explorer, and click "Properties" there should be a "Hardware" tab where "Device Manager" can be opened, if you're using a recent Win version.

You can also use the Control Panel|Add Hardware entry, but Device Manager is a little more efficient.

If the drive is shown, but has a "malfunction/disconnected" logo attached, it means that the computer knows its there and that it isn't operating. It may also show the device and say it's working properly, when you know it isn't working.

If the drive is listed in Device Manager, you can double click on it, and look at whether a driver is installed and turned on. In recent Win versions there's a troubleshoot button, and/or you can use the "update driver" etc to get things turned back on.

The procedure is essentially the same in all cases. You DELETE the device and/or its driver, reboot and let Windows find the device and install a new driver - or ask you for a driver if it doesn't have one handy. Assuming it's a plug and play device, this usually will restore it. Note: you should have a driver file handy, and/or your Windows Installation disk(s).

If the device does NOT APPEAR in Device Manager, you can force Windows to do a search for it. Click on the CD/DVD Drives, click the "Action" button at the top and tell Windows to search for new hardware.

If Windows can't find the device it probably means the hardware has stopped working and you'll need a replacement drive. If you have sufficient information on the device type etc., you can force an installation of a device that Windows can't find on its own, but that's unlikely to help unless you know that your device is old enough to be a non-plug-and-play compatible one. If it didn't come with Win98 or earlier, that's unlikely, but not impossible.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 07:13 PM

A silly question perhaps, but have you tried just putting in a CD and see if it plays? And maybe the icon for the CD Rom might reappear

I don't understand this stuff, but sometimes doing things like that seem to work. (I doubt if it would, but it could be worth trying.)

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 07:25 PM

Kevin, I've tried with both audio and text CDs. Nothing shows up, nothing happens. (If I got a wide based coffee mug I'd have a use for the tray.)

John, I'll try that again- I shall report.

Thanks, guys.

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 08:07 PM

Well, I'm back. I repeated the Device Manager thing and the Add Wizard thing and then I did the whole test thing in the Dell manual, which says all the system tests passed. So I went to another door to test the drive itself and it gave me an Error Code number and said that Dell Technical Support can help me, based on that number. The problem is that I think the number is based on the notion that I simply can't hear the inserted CD, rather than no CD Rom icon appears. So far I haven't come across anything that takes into account that it has disappeared.

I have (allegedly) uninstalled the drive but that's where I'm stuck. When I try to use Add Wiz to reinstall, everything goes swimmingly until it stops and informs me that it can't do it because the drive is "corrupted or missing".

I have the various re-install CDs on hand. When I put in the 'Drivers and Utilities' disk I was hoping it would magically kick the disk drive into action, but no such luck.

This is a 2004 Win XP system. One other thing I did in recent months that disturbs me is that I signed for 'automatic updates' and they have piled up alarmingly. Should I be doing something with that?

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:05 PM

1. If you're getting Automatic Updates with WinXP, they shouldn't be "piling up," if you just let them install as they arrive. They need to be installed when/as you get them, since they don't do you any good until they're put in place. If you have uninstalled updates, you need to install them.

There will be a file on your hard drive for each update, in C:\Windows, that's an "Uninstall" script for each update, so that you can uninstall an update that causes a problem. These will include "Uninstall" and the Bulletin Number for the update in the filename, and will be Hidden files. Although there may be a lot of them, they don't actually take much drive space, so I generally just leave them there. You probably can remove them, at least older ones, once you're sure the update did install and didn't crash something.

2. Unless it's a very old drive that you carried over on a machine that you upgraded to WinXP, the Plug-N-Play in Windows should find it and install it automatically if the drive is working. Your descriptions sound like perhaps the drive itself has died. Optical drives do seem to be one of the least reliable pieces of hardware in recent computers.

3. Some optical Drive (CD and DVD) makers have pretty good diagnostic utilities that you can download and run on your machine to find out whether the drive itself is functional. Ideally you'd look for one from whoever made your drive, but OEM builders often use generic idents for them, so it may be difficult to find out who made one that came with a machine. Sometimes even opening the machine and looking at the nameplate doesn't tell you much. Any of the diagnostics probably will work for telling whether the drive hardware died, but may not give you as much helpful info as the one from your drive's maker. If necessary, look for a name on the Driver that Windows tries to install for yours.

4. Something you might try is creating a "repair disk" (also called "recovery disk" and/or "boot disk") and seeing if you can get the CD Drive recognized when you boot to DOS or boot to Safe Mode from the disk. Assuming you have a floppy drive, the boot disk may require a couple of floppies. WinXP Help files (From Start|Help) should have instructions, including how to put a default CD drive support on the disks. You may need your installation disks to make a boot disk, and of course they're probably on a CD (or a DVD). If you're lucky, a default installation usually saves the necessary installation files on your hard drive, so you may be able to browse to those when/if the system asks for an installation disk. Look for a bunch of "*.CAB" files. This will give an indication if the drive itself is at least partially functional; but won't tell you a lot about what to do about it.

BOTTOM LINE:

If WinXP PnP can't install it after you've "deleted" the drive and rebooted, chances are that it's going to require hands-on work, possibly a drive replacement, to get things working.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:10 PM

Ebbie -

Rereading your last description: After you uninstall the drive, you need to reboot immediately before trying to do other tests and fixes. The idea of removing the drive is to let PnP find it and install it from scratch, and PnP does automatically look for any "unidentified" devices during startup of your computer.

That may be what you did, but it wasn't clear in your description.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:24 PM

Thanks, John. I should have said that I uninstalled it this afternoon and I did reboot before I did anything else.

One of the oddities: When I did (and I went there more than once) go into Add Wizard and the directions said to let Windows look for and find Plug 'n Play, on the next page it never mentioned P 'n P at all; it asked another pertinent question instead.

Thanks for your input, John. It does look to me that I should plan to spend some time with Dell tomorrow.

Incidentally, it appears that Sony built my CD Rom. According to a manual I have.

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:38 PM

About all I can offer is best wishes. My experience has been that Dell support usually is pretty good, but it may depend on whether you get an ESL tech - sometimes.

The question the Add Hardware Wizard should have asked was "let Windows try to find the device using Plug n Play." PnP runs on every startup, just in case something's changed. The Wizard can force it to run without going through the whole boot cycle, but it should know where the PnP utility is without looking. The looking part is looking at your hardware.

The first look usually is for PnP devices, and a working PnP device should "answer" a fairly generic "call." The second look can search for non-PnP devices, but has to "send all possible device queries" to do that in a thorough way. It's often not as successful, but then it is a "last resort" sort of thing.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Gene
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:01 AM

have you tried the SYSTEM RESTORE FUNCTION????

START
ALL PROGRAMS
ACCESSORIES
SYSTEM TOOLS
SYSTEM RESTORE

and GO BACK to previous point before you xyz'd whnatevere

Subject: RE: Tech: CD Rom Disappeared- Corrupted?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 03:57 AM

Bless you, Genie. Set it back to January 2 and - slick as a whistle - popped in a CD - I'm listening to Hank Williams right now.

Strangely, I had tried to restore it earlier today but I got in through a different door and I guess it didn't take. I know I used a different date than that.

Thank you, folks!