DVD-ROM won't read data disks

[ross666]

I have a Matshita SR-8585 and Windows 2000 Pro.
My drive shows up in explorer as 'Compact Disc (E', and when I click on it, I get the message 'Please insert a disk into drive E:', even though one is already in there.
I can play audio CDs just fine. But I can't even get a directory listing from a data CD. I *can* get it to work if I boot to DOS.

What's the problem here? I have reinstalled all the drivers (Windows standard), reinstalled IDE controller drivers (VIA 4.38), tried my drive in another PC (works fine), disabled auto-insert, disabled DMA. No change.

It was working fine with my current set up until yesterday, then something screwed up, but I haven't changed my system in any way.

Help! I know it's a trivial problem, but I need my CD-ROM back, and buying a new one isn't going to help!

Other specs: AMDXP1600, Abit KR7A-133R, 256mb, GF3

Regards,
ross

 

[lakedude]

but I haven't changed my system in any way

Either you are a liar or someone or something else did change something. Do you have 2 optical drives or did you add a HD or a partition?

Sometimes when you install a program on one drive but then try to run it on the other the system gets confused. This type of thing can happen anytime you do anything that might change drive letter assignments. Have you tried more then one data cd?



Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

 

[ross666]

*I* didn't do anything to my system, but I think it may have had a bad crash which upset some windows settings.

Here's some background. The KR7A board has known issues with memory timimgs. I was testing my three DDR modules (=768mb), by playing GTA3. I was finding that the game crashed within 20-30 seconds if I had 3 dimms in place, but with two dimms (=512mb) the game ran smoothly. Anyhow, the crashes were quite bad (as memory crashes are), necessitating soft reset after the game had hung.

Now here's the interesting bit: the game spools music from the CD during play. When a crash occured the screen hung, but the music continued. So basically the PC was given a soft reset while the CD was spooling. And now it seems as though that ANY CD compatible drive is now only recognized as 'Compact Disc' NOT as a CDROM (even though it lists the device correctly in device manager). In other words - Windows explorer thinks the device is audio only, and won't give me a directory listing.

If I go open a DOS window, and type 'D:' (the CD drive), I get the unusual message 'The parameter is incorrect' (rather than the usual 'The system cannot find the drive specified'). Windows knows where the drive IS, it's just misrecognizing it's type. And no amount of uninstalling/disabling/changing/removing of drivers/hardware has made it change it's mind (so far). Changing drive letters hasn't helped - it stills registers it as 'Compact Disc'.

Any further suggestions gratefully recieved.

ross

 

[lakedude]

I take it that you have already removed the device from device manager and let it be found again. Futher I take it that bios is seeing the drive properly. If I remember right dos sees it fine so the problem must be with windows.

HMMMM

Have you tried removing the drive from the system and then removing the drive (and maybe the IDE controller too) from device manager and then re-installing?

Can you re-install windows without loosing anything?
Have you got your system backed up with Drive Image/Ghost/RollBack? This would be a 10 minute problem if you had a backup image made. It may not help this time but before you do anything dangerous next time have some sort of backup made. Drive Image with take a snapshot of everything on you HD in about 10 minutes and restoring takes about the same amount of time. Good luck!

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

 

[ross666]

Believe me, I tried everything. I've now given up and completely re-formatted/re-installed Windows (luckily most of my data is on the second HDD, so it wasn't that painful - until I realised I'd forgotten to backup my recent emails. Doh!)

Anyway, just for the record, here are some of the things I tried (unsuccessfully):
- uninstalled/reinstalled CDROM drivers (they are windows standard), including manual deletion
- reset CMOS to the safe bios defaults
- swapped cable to another IDE port
- changed to a new IDE cable
- installed a completely different CDROM onto the same mobo - same problem (so it can't be a fault with the drive itself)
- run Windows repair mode on startup
- scanned for viruses
- disabled auto-insert
- disabled Ultra DMA
- removed drive in device manager, booted, shutdown, reconnected drive, rebooted
- uninstalled/reinstalled VIA drivers (4.38)
- uninstalled/reinstalled ATA/RAID drivers (getting desperate now)
- re-flashed to lastest bios (it was already the latest)
- tweaked registry settings relating to IDE devices, including deleting all references to the device (they just come back again after reboot)

I think after all that it was definitely a problem with Windows explorer shell, not the usual corrupted driver issue. My guess is that something in the registry got screwed in the crash, and only a Windows programmer with knowledge of the shell and maybe drive interface settings could tell you what the hell it is.

Ah, well. Sorted now. Cheers.

ross