Laptop can't find CD/DVD drive .....any advice please?

[neilmac]

I have reclaimed an old hard drive and put it into a disk caddy to use as additional storage, its a plug and play item so installs itself when first switched on.

Problem is - it has called itself drive D, and has renamed original drive D (the CD/DVD drive) as Removable Disk E.

So now if I insert a CD it doesn't play and the laptop can't find it! Have tried uninstalling the disk caddy but it still leaves the CD drive named wrongly and apparently invisible.

Any advice gratefully received (in laymans language if poss) to sort this out.

Thanks

Neil

[esselte]

I assume you are using a version of windows? right click "my computer" and click the properties tag,then have a look at the device manager under the hardware tab.Can you see the cd drive there?Does it have a yellow exclamation mark against it if so?

[neilmac]

Yes it has a yellow exclamation mark and properties says:

Windows has successfully loaded drivers etc but cannot find the hardware device

Any clearer?

I have managed to rename the drives by finding Disk Management but this has made no difference, and what is now drive D (CD drive) is still showing as a Removable Disk.

Neil

PS Windows XP BTW

Edited by neilmac on Wednesday 5th July 21:14

[jimmyjimjim]

Might be worth setting the dvd drive as something like drive H or Z then rebooting - I'm wondering if the removable HDD has more than one partition on it and is confusing matters...

[neilmac]

Have changed drive letter to Z and re-booted but no change :-(

[aldi]

neilmac said:

Yes it has a yellow exclamation mark and properties says:

Right click, uninstall, reboot - see if it comes back. If not try same to 'secondary IDE controller'.

HTH

[jimmyjimjim]

Quick question - how are the drives connected and jumpered?
Are they all ide drives (as the old hdd almost certainly is)?
Have you put the old hard drive on the same chain as the DVD drive?
If so, which is slave, which is master?

[neilmac]

aldi said:

neilmac said:

Yes it has a yellow exclamation mark and properties says:

Right click, uninstall, reboot - see if it comes back. If not try same to 'secondary IDE controller'.

HTH

Thanks, tried this and on rebooting - computer finds new hardware and reinstalls, still not working but properties in device manager for CD drive now says:

Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

Does this give any clues and is it something I can reset or repair?

Cheers

Neil

[neilmac]

jimmyjimjim said:

Quick question - how are the drives connected and jumpered?
Are they all ide drives (as the old hdd almost certainly is)?
Have you put the old hard drive on the same chain as the DVD drive?
If so, which is slave, which is master?

CD drive is internal in the laptop (Toshiba Satellite) and disk caddy is connected via USB, although I have uninstalled this and disconnected it unil this is resolved.

Hope this helps, and thanks all for you inputs!

Neil

Edited by neilmac on Thursday 6th July 13:43

[aldi]

neilmac said:

aldi said:

neilmac said:

Yes it has a yellow exclamation mark and properties says:

Right click, uninstall, reboot - see if it comes back. If not try same to 'secondary IDE controller'.

HTH

Thanks, tried this and on rebooting - computer finds new hardware and reinstalls, still not working but properties in device manager for CD drive now says:

Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

Does this give any clues and is it something I can reset or repair?

Cheers

Neil

Might be worth a system restore back to before it all went pete tong, and take it forward from there again.

[neilmac]

Would be a good idea, but if the problem goes back to when I installed the caddy first time then that predates the earliest available restore point.

I haven't had cause to use the CD drive for quite a while, and as I now have urgent need to install through it the problem has come to light.

I will, however, try a restore to the earliest possible date just in case...

[aldi]

You've got a few options to go forward with I think -

a)Start getting into messing about in the registry - not a good use of time in this instance IMO

b)Reinstall or run a repair on Windows XP - usually takes around an hour, will probably fix it but does have the slight possibility of causing other problems, e.g. loss of settings elsewhere or simply it all going pete tong half way through and leaving you in a bigger pickle.

c)Throw it at your works IT guys

d)Buy an external USB CD/DVD-ROM/rewriter, something like this

[neilmac]

Just got back in from local computer store and have seen your reply thanks. Have bought an external drive so that will deal with my immediate requirements.

Will look into the suggestion of XP repair in due course - thanks again for all your help

Cheers

Neil

[aldi]

neilmac said:

Just got back in from local computer store and have seen your reply thanks. Have bought an external drive so that will deal with my immediate requirements.

Will look into the suggestion of XP repair in due course - thanks again for all your help

Cheers

Neil

Glad you're sorted. Just been on the phone to another Neil as well! bizzare.

Neil

[neilmac]

aldi said:

b)Reinstall or run a repair on Windows XP - usually takes around an hour, will probably fix it but does have the slight possibility of causing other problems, e.g. loss of settings elsewhere or simply it all going pete tong half way through and leaving you in a bigger pickle.

Bloody computers!!!

New external CD drive acting exactly the same as the existing one, same device manager message and all.

How do I start a repair on XP as it was preinstalled on the laptop when new and I don't have Windows XP discs to reinstall from? - not much use without CD drive anyway I guess....

Cheers

Neil

[aldi]

Have you installed or un-installed any cd-writing software recently? Just been looking at google and it seems to be a common cause of these kinds of problems.

These instructions might be helpfull too: (even if you havent specifically had had EZ-CD creator it sounds like a similar issue)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.

Re: running a repair, CD access on bootup shouldnt be a problem it's probably just the windows drivers that are broken. If you've only got a tosh restore CD and not a full XP CD then check the fine print on it as a lot of restore CD's will just nuke the entire drive back to factory settings, loosing everything else in the process

[Jinx]

Have you still got the caddy connected? Check the jumper settings on the drive you connected to the caddy - set it as a slave. Hopefully XP will sort itself out - if not unistall both the drives in device manager and then do an Add new hardware.

[neilmac]

aldi said:

Have you installed or un-installed any cd-writing software recently? Just been looking at google and it seems to be a common cause of these kinds of problems.

These instructions might be helpfull too: (even if you havent specifically had had EZ-CD creator it sounds like a similar issue)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.

Re: running a repair, CD access on bootup shouldnt be a problem it's probably just the windows drivers that are broken. If you've only got a tosh restore CD and not a full XP CD then check the fine print on it as a lot of restore CD's will just nuke the entire drive back to factory settings, loosing everything else in the process

SIR - You are an absolute star!!!

Sorted and running sweetly, also used Registry Mechanic and although it found a huge number of registry errors it failed to sort this one, but your solution did.

Many many thanks

Neil

[aldi]

Sweet... which way did you do it by the way, did you try the 'guided help' thingy on the microsoft site or did you do it manually?

(Havent used guided help yet just wondering how good it is?)

[neilmac]

Guided help - gives you an option to let it do it automatically. Did it so quickly that it took me a while to realise that it had finished. - Brilliant