[weeGeordie]

I'm cleaning a system of various virus's and spyware and have discovered that somewhere along the line the BIOS no longer sees the CDR/W.

The drive in question is a SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-248F (48x/24x/48x CD-RW). The system is Intel Celeron 4, 1700 MHz (17 x 100) on a Intel Villanova D845GLVA (3 PCI, 2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN) motherboard, running WinXP Home. The BIOS is AMI (01/28/03).

I have not reformatted or reloaded any drivers.

Any idea why the drive can't be seen or how I can get it back?

P.S. I first noticed this when the system would not boot. I went into the BIOS and had to re-enable the hard drive as a boot device.

 

[Firah]

If it's shown in Device Manager, remove it. Shutdown and disconnect the CD-RW drive. Restart, shutdown, and re-install the drive. Then install the burning software.

 

[weeGeordie]

It's not shown in device manager. It won't even respond when I push the button to eject the tray.

I've been going through all the BIOS options line-by-line and when I get to secondary master it shows up [email protected]! Booted and everything seems fine. I do not understand but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Thanks for your help.

 

[weeGeordie]

Now it gets even weirder! I'm trying to uninstall Symantec GoBack from the install CD. I go to RUN and BROWSE to the directory and progam then when I add the /u for uninstall the drive is gone! What the heck is going on!

 

[weeGeordie]

I'm beginning to suspect this system has more problems. I had a good day yesterday and was able to access the CD at every boot. I got NAV installed and then did Norton Personal Firewall.

When I went to boot this morning to finish the job I a blue screen telling me a problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent danage to the computer.

Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007F (0x00000008,0x800420000,0x0000000,0x0000000)

help

P.S. I can get to boot in SAFE mode but I can't uninstall Personal Firewall, (the last thing I put on)

 

[weeGeordie]

I think I must have a hardware or a BIOS problem.

I had a good day yesterday. I reinstalled WinXP over itself and things seemed to be functioning OK. Today I was trying to recover a user account and when I rebooted the BIOS had removed the H/D from the list of bootable devices again.

It's a simple change in the BIOS to add it back in but I'm having difficulty understanding how software changes can impact the BIOS boot devices.

Should I be sending this system into the shop to see if they can isolate the problem to BIOS, motherboard, memory or ????

I'm not a hardware guy so I'm pretty much out of ideas.

THanks

 

[PcGrafix]

Is there a disc in the drive currently? If so use a paper clip in the little hole on the drive to force open the drive while the computer is off. Then open up your case and try switching power plug from the cd drive with another one.

Then Try to reboot and see if it is getting power, If the drive itself is not getting any power then the CD Drive is shot. If you are getting power but no response after you have removed any cd's. Try the drive in another system if possible.

Then you can narrow down whether it is a drive issue or a BIOS issue.
If the drive won't work in another system altogether it's the drive.

If it turns out your BIOS went buggy, Refer to your Motherboards manual on clearing the CMOS and see if that helps. Also if you have updated the BIOS lately maybe you should look for the old BIOS version and flash it with a version you know was working for you. Also you can try the latest version of the BIOS.

Caution: If you aren't comfortable with flashing the BIOS, As in exactly sure of the right file do not attempt to do this as you will really cause problems that you don't want, that go far beyond cdrom drives not showing up.

These are just some thoughts and general ramblings, hope it helps.
If nothing works on it look at it this way, Now you won't have to go out and buy that doorstop you saw at home depot, Cause your CD Drive will work just as good.

 

[weeGeordie]

There's no disk in the CD drive at this time.

If I keep powering off/on the drive will eventually get power, (power light flashes during BIOS load). (Almost sounds like the P/S is going doesn't it.)

I'm gonna put an older CD drive in the system to see if that works, as well as trying that drive in another system.

The owner of the system is a technopeasant and would not have any inkling that a BIOS can be flashed, let alone know how to do it. I've heard enough horror stories to keep from ever attempting a BIOS flash. I've never done one, probably never will. I will definitely NOT do one on someone else's 'puter!

The thing that confuses me the most is why the hard drive is being taken out of the boot sequence.

 

[dustyjay]

It is possible that the Cmos Battery is getting weak. They are only a few dollars and rather easy to change. The way you describe the BIOS keeps on changing that is what it sounds like.

 

[ComputingAng]

I had a similiar issue when my Motherboard crapped out on me. When I got a different board and installed all my drives on it and then tried to boot up, the Operating System would not boot and the drives did not show up correctly in the BIOS. First, I had to redetect the HD, the system still would not boot. So, I took the DVD/CDRW drive off the same IDE cable as the HD and put it on it's own cable. Finally, The system booted and everytime I went to reboot the Drives would not show up correctly in the BIOS. So, the problem boiled down to a WinXP issue and IDE controllers. So, when you reinstalled XP over itself, WinXP may have put the wrong IDE drivers in for the IDE controllers because it found a similar match for the IDE channels. If you had specific IDE controller drivers installed WinXP will not work correctly, because it is using the wrong controller drivers. Suggestion: If, you absolutely have to have information off the old system, this website will tell you how to transfer the files you want to save and how to do a clean install of WinXP http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/columns/honeycutt/02october07.asp

 

[weeGeordie]

Would those IDE drivers be part of the motherboard drivers?

P.S. I pulled and old 36x CD from a system I had kicking around and installed it in place of the Samsung CD/RW. Seems to be working fine so far.

 

[ComputingAng]

Yes they are, WinXP systems seem to have more issues with this because it's Plug N' Play Happy. If it's a manufactured system, such as Dell, Compaq, or HP go to their website and type in the Model number of the Computer system and look for IDE and EIDE drivers under downloads for the Particular Operating system you are using. If the system is too old the site may not have drivers for your particular Operating system. Then, if you have any further problems we are back to the Dreaded reinstallion of Windows.

It was the first time I had these issues and I've had to do quick fixes on old OS's and never had such problems with the IDE controllers for the motherboard.

 

[weeGeordie]

Looks like it was the device that was bad all along. Everything worked fine for several days with the old spare CDROM drive in the machine. As soon as I reinstalled the Samsung the problems came back. It's off to the computer store to get a new drive.

Thanks for your help. ...wee

 

[ComputingAng]

I never thought of the possibility of the drive being bad. Your situation was like mine and all I had to do was reinstall the IDE drivers. My drive works fine. Sorry, for the oversight.

Well, at least you didn't have to go through anything else. How old is the Samsung drive? You can check the Samsung website and see if the drive is under warranty. You will need the Serial Number off the drive to enter on the website. If it is, you need to look for RMA information on Samsung's website for the drive and have it replaced for nothing other than shipping. Then you won't have to make the trip to the store.

I hope it is still under warranty.

 

[weeGeordie]

It uses the drivers included in XP. Nothing to reinstall. The drive was included in the system, (MDG). Gotta talk to them about warranties. Thanks

 

[dustyjay]

Actually the fact that the drive is not recognized by the bios has nothting to do with the drivers. The drivers are not loaded until the OS is loaded. There is circuitry on the drive itself similar to bios that is recognized by the bios. the fact that the drive is bad is why it doesnt get recognized in bios. Changing or reloading the windows drivers will not change that.

 

[PcGrafix]

As is common in this age of high speed internet I think you missed the point of the whole posting as it started. What the person said is that the drive had issues after a reboot, if you think that the Operating System doesn't affect the BIOS and what it is set at just ask yourself how many people change the time and date VIA the BIOS, Furthermore plug & play is only possible in the OS because the BIOS and The OS Communicate through the symbiotic relationship that they do. That is the entire point of newer BIOS having ESCD.

Extended System Configuration Data, To compare current configuration with previous configuration. This forces the BIOS for a reason because the OS can change BIOS Settings.

Also you leave out the whole idea of firmware drivers which very much can affect a BIOS and how it will deal with hardware. You didn't even mention that in your post. For the person having the issue that can be a serious avenue of consideration because if for any reason the chip which stores the firmware info was damaged a simple flash of that ROM chip may make all the difference. So look for that on the manufacturer's web site.

Perhaps next time you will read the entire conversation first.

 

[ComputingAng]

DustyJay,

I know the drivers don't load until the OS does. This fact isn't relevant to the issue of the drive showing up fine in the BIOS until a reboot or a drive not showing up at all. I had my CDRW/DVD drive show up and not show up in the BIOS. When It would show up during boot up, once I got into windows, it would either not be available or not function, but when I reinstalled the IDE drivers, all was ok. The drive works just Fine! My point was XP can cause conflicts with IDE drivers even if the drive shows up in the BIOS. In cases where you do a reinstall over the OS and changing out hardware, this can happen.

 

[dustyjay]

I am not disputing the relationship between the Bios and the operating system. They do indeed depend upon each other. I will admit that I may not be reading the original post correctly. I read it to say that upon initial boot, before the Hard drive is even accessed to start reading the information from the drives the CD-RW is not seen after POST by the BIOS. If this is the case it is not an OS problem nor an installed driver problem. IF it reads however that it is recognized during boot but not in Windows explorer or in my computer (possibly other installed programs requiring the CDRW) then yes I agree that it may very possibly be a driver causing the problem. But given the fact that replacing the CDRW with a normal CDrom the drive is recognized and replacing the Questioned CDRW back in it is not, I would bet on a hardware problem. If he had said it is recognized as a cdrom but not as a CDRW then that could be a Software problem. But he stated that it would not be recognized at all. Again leading me to surmise it to be a hardware problem. Again if I am reading the post wrong Then I will agree that doing a repair install of the OS may be just what is needed.

 

[weeGeordie]

The symptoms in this case were not consistent/repeatable.

On some tries the drive was readily recognized and available to the software. (Those were the good days)

Some starts took a LOOOONG time to get to the Windows splash screen and the device was not seen at all by the OS. If I entered the BIOS setup during these sessions the device was not listed at all. Windows Device Manager did not see the device either, (makes sense).

A few times the system could not find a boot device. Entering the BIOS setup showed the H/D but it was no longer listed in the boot sequence.

And then there were the times when Windows Explorer would see the drive. However, when I attempted to select it Explorer would stop responding. When Explorer was restarted the device was no longer there.

Considering this was happening over a period of several days I did not have the time, nor did it occur to me to check to see if, when the CD was seen by the OS, whether it recognized it as a CDROM or CDRW.

Thanks for your help and interest.