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CD-Rom drive won't read mini CDs
Background info:
Have a dimension 2300 which is a few years old. Recently upgraded the internal Hard Drive from Dell's 30Gb to a Seagate 80Gb after having problems reformatting the Dell HD (something kept giving me the blue screen of death so I decided to wipe it clean and start again). Had to reinstall the Operating System, Applications, Drivers, etc.
ANYWAY...since reinstalling the OS, etc., my CD-Rom drive (HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8400B) will not read mini (8cm) CD-R disks. It NEVER had a problem reading these disks before I reformatting and reinstalled everything. I used to be able to pop a mini CD (which is the media that my Sony digital camera uses) into the deeper, middle well of the CD-Rom tray/drive, close it up, and the AutoPlay function would kick in and ask the usual questions of "Do you want to display pictures" etc. NOW, the AutoPlay still kicks in, but sees the disk as Blank, and you can tell/hear that the disk is not spinning. The disks are definately not blank - I can put the mini disk back into my camera and view the pictures with no problem. I attempted to use the 8cm mini CD adapter that came with the Sony camera (and makes the mini disk the size of a normal CD), but it still thinks the disk is blank and won't read it.
There is probably a setting on the CD-Rom drive, but I am unable to find it. I've checked the Device properties, etc., and unless I'm overlooking something, I don't see a way to change the type/size media that the CD-Rom will read. There may be a setting in the BIOS, but that's unfamiliar territory for me. Anyone have any suggestions? I would be eternally grateful.
Satiria
osprey4
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February 11th, 2006 16:00
Ok, here's what you do. Reboot and when you see the blue Dell logo, hit F2 to enter system setup. Look for the section/page on drives. Where your DVD drive is listed, there should be an option to set it to OFF. Exit saving changes and boot to Windows.
After the firmware update, repeat the process and turn it back on.
Satiria
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February 11th, 2006 16:00
Do you have any details about getting that firmware update for the CD-Rom and installing it?
I do have another drive - a dell DVD-Rom drive. I assume that I would disable the drive under Device Manager | Right-click the DVD-Rom drive and go to Properties | and on the General tab, under Device Usage, just click Disable or Do not use this drive? So as soon as I install the firmware update on the CD-Rom drive, I can re-enable the DVD-Rom, correct?
Thanks for the help - Satiria
osprey4
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February 11th, 2006 16:00
If you have another drive, it must be disabled in system setup before you run the update.
Satiria
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February 12th, 2006 12:00
okay - went into BIOS and did not see a clear cut place to turn off that second drive, the DVD drive. In fact, the only place I saw the drive listed was under the Advanced tab, under the Secondary IDE Master setting (which it apparently is). I checked out the values there and there was a UDMA setting which was currently at Auto, and I could set to Disable, but was unsure if that was the right place to go. Also, worried that if the DVDRom is the master and I disable the master that somehow the CDRom, as the slave, might not startup properly. If you could shed more light on this, please do. And if I was in the right place to disable the thing (without repercussions), let me know.
While on the topic of BIOS, can you think of any reason why a setting the the BIOS wouldn't hold upon startup. Specifically, I have the NUMLOCK set to ON in Bios and the stupid thing never comes on upon startup. I always have to manually turn it on.
Thanks - Satiria
Satiria
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February 13th, 2006 17:00
I figured it out - though it's a most bizarre solution. When I reinstalled applications I left off the Roxio Easy CD Creator. I never used it, so I figured "why clutter up things" Then, when reading something in the hardward documentation I saw a note about how my CD drive wouldn't work properly in an NT environment without Roxio. Now, even though I've got Win XP on this machine, I figured...I'll give it a try. Turns out that was it. There must be something that program enables - a driver inside the software? - so that it can read mini CD-Rs. Because according to the hardward documentation, those mini disks aren't compatible with this CD-RW drive otherwise. I never would have known, since I never had a problem viewing the mini disks before this happened.
Osprey - thanks for helping me troublshoot.
osprey4
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February 14th, 2006 10:00
Axel49
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September 16th, 2010 03:00
Hello, this was an interesting thread to me!
I have a similar problem, indeed the opposited problem.
I am running on a Dell Precision 330 workstation, delivered some years ago with original CD-ROM reader, Lite-On LTN486 48x Max ATA Device.
I need to reset the CD reader to its original state. The reader has been working fine for several years, recently I put an 8 cm mini CD in it and could read its content fine.
However, after performing this action I cannot read normal CD disks anymore, the computer doesn't accept normal 12 cm CD disks but still working with 8 cm mini CD disks. I cannot reboot computer from CD for now. Not even cold restart resets the CD reader to normal state.
Obviously, there should be a setting in the BIOS which causes this undesired behavior. Possibly, the Lite-On LTN486 48x Max ATA Device firmware needs to be reset.
Very grateful for tips and tricks on this point.
Although the problem obviously not is related directly to the operating system I have the Windows Vista and the Windows XP installed in different partitions.
Many thanks in advance for your support!
Axel