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12967
September 3rd, 2004 02:00
CD Player/Burner has stopped detecting CDs
I have a Dimension 8200 running XP Pro. The DVD-ROM is a LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163 GDH (Drive D). The burner is an HL-DT-STCD-RW GCE-8400B B104 (Drive E). The disc detector is Creative Disc Detector, Vers. 1.59.
As recently as yesterday, Drive E took several attempts to recognize a blank disk for burning, but it did do so. Today, it will not recognize any disk, either a blank one for burning or one for playing.
I've tried toggling the disk detector, including rebooting the computer after toggling off and again after toggling back on.
In addition, both drives will no longer detect a CD-RW.
I'd appreciate any help in resolving these two problems.
DtheD
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DELL-Stephen S
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1.4K Posts
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September 3rd, 2004 19:00
DtheD,
Thank you for visiting the Dell Community Forum.
The first thing you will want to do is test the drive on a hardware level to determine if the symptoms that you are having are caused by a hardware issue or a possible software problem (if two drives are showing a similar problem, it may also be an operating system issue, a problem with the IDE controller on the motherboard or a cable issue).
To test the drive you will need your Windows CD and a CDROM boot diskette. You can download a CDROM boot disk from our web site to use. From the Dell Download page search for and download the file DIAGFT32.EXE - once this file is downloaded, run the file and it will extract to a floppy disk to create a CDROM bootable floppy disk.
Put both of these (floppy disk & CD) in the drives and restart your system. At the startup menu, pick the option to start with CDROM support. This will boot the system to an A:\ prompt and try to load the CDROM drivers; it should tell you what drive letter it assigns to the CDROM drive, usually D: or E:. From the A: prompt, type in D: (or what ever drive letter was assigned) and then press ENTER. Next type in DIR and press enter. If it gives you a directory of files, then most likely the CDROM drive is mechanically working and you will need to trouble-shoot the software on the system. If you get some sort of error message, then you will need to do hardware trouble-shooting on the CDROM drive.
If the drive does not read when you boot from the floppy disk, the next thing to try is clearing the NVRAM (see below) and reseating (unplugging and reconnecting) the data cable (wide grey ribbon cable) for the CDROM at both ends before repeating the test above. If the drive is still not reading, you will want to contact Dell technical support as the drive may need to be replaced.
If the drive works when you boot to the CD boot disk, try going into the Device Manager in Windows and remove the CD drive, restart the system and allow the drive to be detected again to see if that helps.
You can find information on clearing the NVRAM on Dimension systems in the Dell Online Knowledge Base article located at the following web address:
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
DtheD
5 Posts
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September 4th, 2004 20:00
Stephen S.
I hope this is not a duplicate. I also hope I followed your directions correctly. I copied the CDROM boot diskette. I put it in the floppy drive and the MS Windows XP(PRO) Reinstallation CD in the D drive and rebooted my system.
I got the following message: MSCDEX Version 2.25 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1986-1995. All rights reserved.
Indented on two lines I got (a) Drive C: = Driver MSCD0001 unit 0; and (b) Drive D: Driver MSCD0001 unit 1, which I interpreted to mean the CDROM drivers were assigned to both the C and the D drives. I was a little concerned because I had expected to see either D or E or both. On the next line, without indentation, I got an A-prompt.
I typed in D and hit Enter. I got the message "Bad Command or file name" and another A-prompt. So I tried typing in C and hitting return. That yielded the same message. I'm assuming that means that player/-burner problem I'm having is probably a hardware issue.
Before I crawl under the desk, disconnect the processor and pull it out to open it to check the cable connections, did I do correctly what you were telling me to do?
Thanks, DtheD
DELL-Stephen S
2 Intern
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1.4K Posts
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September 7th, 2004 15:00
DtheD,
At the A:> prompt, make sure when you type in the drive letter name for the optical drive that you use a colon after the drive letter – like “D:� (without quotes) and then press ENTER.
DtheD
5 Posts
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September 11th, 2004 16:00
Stephen,
Thank you. That colon makes a big difference. When I reloaded the floppy and the disk, I got the message mentioned in my earlier query. At the A-prompt, I entered D: and got an error message, so I rebooted and entered C:. That gave me a C-prompt. I entered DIR and got a listing of 5 files (1,314,054 bytes) and 5 directories (0 bytes), suggesting that the problem is a software issue.
Since my burner is Nero Burning 5.5, I uninstalled it and re-installed it. Since doing that, my D-drive, after a few attempts will recognize and read from my CD-RW disks. My E-drive (the burner drive) will still not recognize the CD-RW at all and usually takes several attempts to recognize a blank CD-R to burn to. I have, however, been able, using Windows Media Player, been able to get it to burn once I've gotten the drive to recognize a blank CD-R.
In the process, I noted that, when I boot the system with the disk and the floppy, after I "Load IDE CDROM Driver", I get a screen that starts out "Oak Technology". On that screen, which is soon replaced by the MSCDEX Version 2.25 screen, there is a line "Number of drives: 2". That, and the fact that the MSCDEX Version 2.25 screen shows only Drive C: and Drive D: has me wondering. Should the system be recognizing only two drives or should it be recognizing 3 drives (C:, D: & E:)?
Thanks for your help,
DtheD
p.sandler
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September 19th, 2004 16:00
Hello,
I want to say that i have the exact same problem, and its VERY FRUSTRATING! I have two cd rom;s installed in my dell computer, the D drive is the regular cd rom, and the E drive is the dvd/cdrw. I use Nero to burn cd's and for some reason in the past week, the E drive will no longer recognize my blank cd's. It will not recognize it Nero, or any other program. I dont know if there is a virus going around with Dell computer's, since the other person has the exact same problem I have, but please try and help us fix it asap! My e drive can recognize and play audio or dvd cd's, but it will not recognize BLANK cd's.
Thanks for your help!