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CAN'T ACCESS CD PLAYER
I HAD TO REPOST THIS. I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO EDIT OR REMOVE THE PREVIOUS POSTS ON THIS PROBLEM
My hard drive got corrupted when I installed software without disabling my anti-virus program. All my restore options were destroyed years before when I had a similar problem and was forced to reload from scratch. This time I got impatient and screwed up big time. I can no longer access the CD player. Making changes to the boot and setup had no effect. I ran a diagnostic program from my USB floppy drive and it recognized both drives (DVD & CD) and they tested OK. I could not load WIN XP with that program because it would not load with DOS. If I can access the CD player I will be home free. All suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I have a DELL Dimension 8400.
As I said previously, I screwed up big time. I put a WIN ME cd in thinking I could load it before the XP installation. I think I corrupted the BIOS and/or COMMAND.COM on the hard drive. The DVD and CD players both work when I run diagnostic from my USB floppy. I just can't access them. I have a copy of the BIOS and installed it - no help. I think COMMAND.COM is messed up on the hard drive but don't know how to correct it. Thanks, Ted
dakitas
38 Posts
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December 29th, 2012 07:00
en.community.dell.com/.../20261963.aspx
maybe the HDD is failing or WinXP is corrupt, try run "chkdsk /r" and "fixboot" and "fixmbr" at command prompt
*floppies can give a lot of problems due to dust
rdunnill
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December 29th, 2012 11:00
Windows Me modifies the master boot record without prompting. That happened to me once, and I had to fix it by manually editing the hard drive sectors with a hex editor.
You should be able to access the CD drive by pressing F12 at boot-up to bring up the boot menu, and selecting it as the boot device.