ok all you techies... throw me a bone here!

[scylis]

my cd drive is being screwy with me. it won't recognise that there's a cd in there and when i click on the D: drive icon under "My Desktop" it says "D:\ Drive is not accessable. The Drive is not ready."

i've tried restarting but it doesn't want to comply. anybody have any idea what's wrong?

 

[Cirrus]

Check for a firmware update...no, scratch that. First have you installed anything new lately? If so try un-installing it and see of that helps. Check all your connections and that includes jumpers (duh...I assume you've already done that). I hate to tell you but if it just started out of the clear blue it's probably a hardware problem.

 

[scylis]

was working just fine about an hour ago. what i did was i minimized when a game was asking for a certain disk (just after i poped it in and before it started spinning).

does that change anything?

 

[p_p_man]

Have you recently partitioned your...

...hard drive?

 

[Guest]

I would suspect that the controler is hung up trying to read a disk that isn't there. I get similar problems trying to switch partitions on the fly. Hangs up everything.

Try a SINGLE ctrl-alt-del to see if you can do an 'unfreeze'.

 

[bluntforcemama]

sounds like the track is off. It isn't Kenwood, is it? They're notorious for having to replace their hardware.

 

[scylis]

well, it's worked for...four years. damn, it's old. but that's not why it's stopped working.

it's a Mitsumi XF320S !B (whatever that means)

 

[Unclebill]

One simple thing you might try is shut down, power off, then power on a few seconds (5-10) later. That sometimes clears things that a Windows Restart or Shutdown and Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't.

 

[scylis]

still nothing..

i just noticed one of the penguin stickers above it is not there...

oh shit

 

[scylis]

ok, it makes a soft little "click" noise when it should start whirring away then nothing..

 

[Guest]

have you ran any utilities?

maybe there is some component missing that is interferring with it. with my compaq... I had that problem....

 

[Ezzy]

Try looking at your hardware profiles...

Right click My Computer drop down the list to properties.

Left click properties then look at the hardware profiles (This is for windows not MAc or Unix)

Look at the cd rom and check that it is enabled in all profiles.

You could then check the driver is correct by attempting to update it.

Hope this helps.




EZ

 

[Weird Harold]

still nothing..

i just noticed one of the penguin stickers above it is not there...

oh shit

Sounds like you may have a FOD (Foreign Object Damage) problem.

It may work fine if you can find and remove the sticker, but then again, you may need to buy a new drive. It depends on whether it's jammed, or if it's actually damaged the mechanism.

 

[scylis]

aww shit

 

[Closet Desire]

New drives...

...are so cheap it's hardly worth the hassle to sort out the old one. This approach usually works for me. Then again, I have a very nice Epson Styls Photo 890 that I bought when I expertly decided my Epson 900 was dead. Ok, so now I've got two perfectly good ink jets! (was a bad motherboard)

It sounds like you've tried the most obvious things and if it was working before and not working now...well...probably gave up the ghost.

Good luck.

 

[Ksss]

If you have lost a sticker in the drive, see if you can find it, remove it, then clean the drive with one of those CD-Rom cleaners to remove residue from the sticker. The sticker may be covering the lens which reads the disk.

 

[scylis]

well, i've poked around inside and couldn't find it, so i think the sticker is not inside. i think i'll just go and grab a new one later tonight.

any recomendations there?

 

[Unclebill]

Another test is to boot from the Windows 98 Setup Disk (the 1.44 MB floppy that you use to install Win 98). Select the option WITH CD-ROM support and see if you can read a CD from here.

There's a comparable floppy for Win 95 but you may have to add some files, edit config.sys and autoexec.bat to get the CD-ROM drivers installed.

If you can, the problem is in the Windows installation or setup somewhere. If not, probably time for a new drive.

When looking for a new drive, look to see that it meets the Multi-Read specification. That's preferable to one that doesn't if you get CD's written by a friend. And it allows your system to read CD-RW media.

Best of luck.

P. S. I also suggest you check the power and data connectors and make sure both are seated properly since a post above implied you were physically checking inside the computer. Also, does the light on the drive illuminate briefly as the system starts up? If not, that may also be indicative of a drive hardware malfunction.

Also, can you insert a music CD and play it using the buttons on the CD drive front panel? For this to work, you must have the audio cable (a small, 4-wire cable with 4-pin connectors on either end) connected between the CD-ROM drive and your sound card.

If you can't hear anything in this mode of operation, you have eliminated the computer and digital interface entirely and probably have a failed drive.