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CD/DVD-Rom and CD-RW drives disappeared
I have a brand new Dimension 8300 (just arrived yesterday). I installed a 2nd hard drive with that has my data on it and everything worked fine. I then installed some software (Wordperfect, Quicken, Dreamweaver and Fireworks, Palm desktop) and shut down for the evening. This morning the optical drives had disappeared. I tried all sorts of things I found in this forum (e.g. trying to delete upper and lower filter values -- but only found lower) to no avail. The drives don't exist in device manager and hardward install doesn't detect them as new.
The Dell tech to whom I spoke said that she thought it was the IDE cable and they'd send another. I had a spare one and changed it, but it didn't do any good. Any suggestions?
Judith
fireberd
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December 13th, 2003 17:00
How did you strap the extra drive? It has to be strapped for Cable Select. If it's strapped for slave or master it can cause I/O problems and even the problem you are experiencing.
If you disconnect the extra hard drive does the CD drives come back?
Predator
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December 13th, 2003 18:00
Hi Judith,
I am going to try and sneak in here while Jack is wondering around conference,...lol. Click on the CD/RW gif in my post and scroll to Section 11, articles 2 & 1 and Section 100, article 31.
Try these if you have already doubled checked for a loose IDE cable.
Seasons Greetings !
God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.
Message Edited by Predator on 12-13-2003 03:12 PM
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 13th, 2003 18:00
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 13th, 2003 18:00
Thanks for the quick reply. I took the drive out of my old Dell and put it in and it recognized it. I don't think I have the documentation for it anymore and seem to recall that I had had to set the jumpers to cable select at the time, but I can't be sure. Do you have ideas about how to find out the proper jumper settings without the documentations sheet?
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 14th, 2003 12:00
Thanks for all the suggestions. I tried all of these things repeatedly. At one point last night they came back, but they're gone again and so Dell is going to replace the motherboard. For anyone who is dealing with this, the following worked, but only temporarily:
Reseat the cables on the drives and the motherboard. Reboot the computer and press F2 to go into Set up. Press Alt-F. Then make sure the Caps lock, Num lock and Scroll lock lights are all on. Press Alt-E until you hear a beep and then reboot. The computer will attempt to identify your IDE devices. In my case, it worked one out of about 25 times.
Predator
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December 14th, 2003 14:00
I hope this resolves your issue.
Good luck,
Jeff
jlw22
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December 14th, 2003 21:00
Well, the Dell tech solved the problem of my CD/DVD-Rom and CD-RW drives on my new Dimension 8300 not being recognized by having me change the jumpers from cable select to master/slave and it worked. They both showed up and were both recognized appropriately.
I finished setting up my computer by installing the software and drivers for my Digital camera and my MP3 player and everything seemed fine.
Now the drives are both showing up as CD-Rom drives and I can't get the RW drive to do anything but read files. I uninstalled the drive, cleared the nvram and XP reinstalled the driver, but the same thing happened.
When I try to run Sonic RecordNow, I get an error message saying "No compatible Recordable or Rewritable devices could be found on your system."
Any assitance would be appreciated.
JLW
Predator
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December 14th, 2003 22:00
Hi JLW,
Click on the CD/RW gif in my post and scroll to Section 100, article 37, see if this Microsoft article addresses your issue.
Best Regards
God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 14th, 2003 23:00
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 15th, 2003 11:00
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 15th, 2003 11:00
jlw22
16 Posts
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December 15th, 2003 11:00
Sorry about the strange post. I have no idea how it happened.
Anyway, I've spent the entire three days trying to get this fixed and I'm very frustrated now. I am convinced that it is a hardware problem and I hope that Dell will take care of it and fix it once and for all. Thanks to everyone for all the help.
JLW
jlw22
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December 15th, 2003 11:00
Predator
15.3K Posts
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December 16th, 2003 03:00
Hi JLW,
Contact Dell support by phone, be firm but polite, be prepare to most likely re-instal the Operating System from scratch. State "All" the steps you have tried, Dell articles, Microsoft articles, etc...If you get no satifaction from the Tech, ask to speak with a Supervisor.
For what it is worth, I am truly sorry for wasting your time.
God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.