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NO CD-ROM DRIVE FOUND

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13 replies

by colgate

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Ok here goes. It's a Dell machine. It wouldn't recognise internal modem & would give me "Plug and Play configuration error" everytime it booted, so I thought I'd reset bios and format hard disk. That worked in getting read of the "error", however now it won't recognised the CD-ROM no matter what I try. I've tried via Windows 98SE startup disk, via my own made boot disk, via installing its driver separately, trying a different CD-ROM and replacing IDE cable... just in case. NOTHING has worked! Ineed to be able to install CDROM otherwise I can't reinstall Windows 98SE.

Whenever I try and load a driver, by the way it's a Samsung SC-148 model, the driver tells me that "No drives can be found" and to check and see whether drive is on... it's driving me mad :-S

Can anyone help? Any suggestions/thoughts welcome.

Thanks
colgate girl

13 replies

by opatzg9

Just a few more ?'s. on its own cable alone? Should it be jumpered? channel select or master or slave? Check and make sure jumpers didn't fall off and are set properly for it. Does it have power? open/shut? if no well you got trouble. If yes thenit has to be the ide connector or ribbon or cd or bios. You've tried another working cdrom and ribbon but was it configured/jumpered right?
If yes well then you have motherboard issues. Its' possible the ide got blown out, you can get a pci ide card. Do any of the pins on the motherboard look missing or bent in that ide channel? is it back when you pull the modem card back out? If yes get a new modem. Check in you bios for how ide detection is set up and set to auto detect if it is not. Sorry for having all this haphazardly strewn through here, last option probably best place to look first. Good Luck!

by nook99

You will need to install the latest IDE drivers for your motherboard. Go get'em from the Dell web site.

Once that is completed, you will be able to access your CD-ROM

cheers,

by deadly ernest

This sounds more like a hardware BIOS problem than anything else.

Try placint the CD on the Secondary IDE circuit and make sure that the cable is plug in correctly at both end, line 1 at Pin 1. Check the jumper setting on the back of the CD is set correctly.

Then check the BIOS is set to allow both the IDE circuits wot work and that it allows the proper level of DMA settings. I would take the opportunity to go through and check all the BIOS settings at this time as well.

Try an Auto Find of drives in the BIOS, if it has it.

Save settings and reboot.

by rcom

First an observation, I don't see many questions in this forum about Dell computers. It's almost allways Compaq. Has anyone noticed that.

I agree with answer number 3 your problems are probably related to resetting the BIOS. You need to check and see that both IDE channels are enabled. The settings for IDE channel (enable/disable) are usually listed in the intergrated peripherals section. If the CDROM is connected to IDE channel 2 then it can be set as a master or slave. If it's connected to the hard drive it should be a slave. Some hard drives have different jumper settings to be a single, master, slave or cable select. But most just have master/single using the same jumper settings.

Try to get back to the same original configuration and settings. Connect the CD as it was and if you didn't know how it was set up in the BIOS just make sure both IDE channels are enabled (as mentioned) put everything else on auto detect for things like DMA etc.

by colgate

Hey... sorry about delay in replying. Thanks to all of you for your help :-) You were almost all right... it was to do with the IDE enabling in the BIOS. I can't believe I didn't think of that since that's what I touched! Anyway, would like to sharethe points equally as all of you told me something that brought me closer to the solution, however it seems I can only allocate it to one of you... so I'll have to choose the first one - opatzq! Thanks again

by colgate

Hey... sorry about delay in replying. Thanks to all of you for your help :-) You were almost all right... it was to do with the IDE enabling in the BIOS. I can't believe I didn't think of that since that's what I touched! Anyway, would like to sharethe points equally as all of you told me something that brought me closer to the solution, however it seems I can only allocate it to one of you... so I'll have to choose the first one - opatzq! Thanks again

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