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CD-ROM not recognized in Win95/98

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by finnie

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We have an older system that will not recognize the CD-ROM Drive. It will recognize it in DOS so that we can can install either Windows 95 or 98 but the Windows OS will not recognize the drive. We put in a CD with Auto-start enabled and nothing. It is not in Device manager and when you use Explorer there is no option to go to a D: drive. Everything else works perfectly. Very Frustrating. Please help.

13 replies

by finnie

We have tried using several "universal" and specific drivers and the Add Hardware Wizard.

by geeker_

Here are some things to try.

First of all go into your Device Manager and make sure that the is NOT an exclamation on your hard drive controller. (To get to the device manager... RIGHT click on My Computer, then go to properties, then select the device manager tab). If there is an exclamation, you will need to load the proper drivers for that first.

Second. Try using Add New Hardware in the control panel and just let windows search for your CD-ROM. I have had this work a few times.

Third. I have seen some older viruses cause a CD-ROM not to work in windows when it works fine in DOS. Usually if you have a virus, there will be a yellow exclamation on the hard drive controller.

Forth. Buy a new CD-ROM. Is the hours spent troubleshooting this really worth $40.

by yagar

I do not really like doin it but load a DOS CD driver in the Autoexec.bat and config.sys (the same one that makes it work in DOS) and boot with that to windows. Windows many pick up the CD then.

by roland63

Could the CD Rom drive be set to MASTER along with the HD on the primary IDE channel?

Check that.

Good luck.

by finnie

Thanks for the help. I guess it's true, it usually is the simple things. ;-)

by vertex

Answer 2 should bring some solution to the problem. With older system after a fresh installtion of OS, you should also check if you are using an Intel chipset motherboard. Install the BMIDE file (for Win95), your CD-ROM should be detected in Windows.

by txtopgun

The only virus I have seen do this also took out ALL removable drives at the same time. I could boot from the CD, floppy, or zip drive but once it was up and running, I couldn't even access any of them. That is the first place I would start (granted it wasn't the first place I started at the time. I only noticed it AFTER I put in a new CD drive and it did the exact same thing).

If you can still access the other removable drives, then I personally would rule out a virus and start looking at drivers. Reloading the drivers from a known clean source will probably fix the problem.

Good luck.

by txtopgun

By the way, in my particular case, I had to wipe out the drive and start over. After that the old drive worked like a champ again. By taking out all the removeable drives at the same time, the only way to retrieve any of your information from the hard drive would be if you had a) another hard drive to install and copy the information to (it didn't take out the second drive), or via a LAN (my way).

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