What would make a cd-rom show up in dos, but not windows?

T

TSx

Gawd
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Jan 11, 2004
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I built a comp, put win98 on it, installed my usual starting software (office, norton, etc.) then didn't use it for a few days. I turned it on to install some scanner software and I can't; there's no cd drive showing up. I restart, look for the boot...shows secondary master as the cd drive, which it should, boot from cd (win cd in) nothing happens...load to windows, no cd drive listed. I restart to dos, no cd drive listed...put a different cd drive in, restart, boots up and shows it as secondary master, loads and nothing.

I thought maybe the ide cable or something went bad, switched the drive to primary slave, loads up, errors on boot. I can't remember what the error was, something about not an atapi device or something I think...Nothing had changed from when the comp booted normally to when it booted with a cd drive not showing, so I'm at a loss as to what caused it. Any suggestions?
 
shows in bios? try installing cd drivers... cdex or something. would probably work fine with winXP, win98 sucked with that type of stuff though.
 
You can try installing the Adaptec ASPI drivers for windows. Since you're running Win98, there's a halfway decent chance that will cure the problem.

Download Link
 
Magic....


That and errrr is it specifically hidden in your win98 config. For the life of me I thought that was an option.

Can you see it from the win98 command line? And how do you get to dos? IE boot disk? F8 menue?
 
It actually doesn't show up in dos, I thought it did but that was the zip drive...it only shows up in bios and on load, but f8'ing to dos and restart in ms dos mode both show nothing.

I was going to format and put win2k on, but I couldn't boot off the 2k cd...I've got a floppy but no boot disk, I think I remember how to make one with 98, been so long since I've used it.

If I'm able to format 98 off, you think 2k should detect it fine?
 
you can disable master/slave drives in windows in the options, check to see that you didn't.

~Adam
 
Originally posted by CleanSlate
you can disable master/slave drives in windows in the options, check to see that you didn't.

~Adam
Click to expand...

What option is that? Or rather, where? I didn't see anything like that and don't think I actually ever have on any of my systems dating back, 98, 2k, or xp.
 
its weird. my computer had the same problem with windows xp. sometime windows showed floppy when none was plugged in and sometimes it didnt when one was attached. i could never figure it why and what to do to fix it

i eventualy got it o work for a minute but then i gaabe up because it woulda lways revert back to htesame problem when i was trying to install my raid arrary
 
It's in there, under your ide controller, I could find the exact place, but I'm on windows 2k pro, not 98- it might be different, and if this isn't it it might be a dieing/dead cdrom.

~Adam
 
I'll check when I go to the office tomorrow, since I'm also on 2k at home. I know it's not the cd drive, as I've tried 3 of them, and two ide cables...unless I'm simply very unlucky.
 
well... I'd try those cdroms in other computers because that dead ide controller might have killed all of those cdroms :(

~Adam
 
Boot into your CMOS and try to auto detect the drives. They should be set to auto anyway, but look and see what your BIOS is seeing. If your BIOS settings are configured to set your interupts and DMA settings to your OS and your BIOS isn't seeing the drive, Windows might not see the drive. If multiple drives on different cables aren't detected by your BIOS you have a big problem. It could be a ide controller chip gone bad or some other motherboard hardware failure. Someone else sounded like they were wondering if you had any flags in device manager. Does all of your hardware other than your CD Rom show up in device manager with no flags? Primary and Secondary IDE controllers should be listed under one of the nodes in device manager. I seen BIOS settings that could enable and disable IDE controllers too. What else do you have hooked up to your IDE channels?
 
Is there an MSDOS Compatibility issue with the drive within Windows? This plagued me horribly with that system. Or was that Win 95? I forget.
 
No. This is hardware failure on some level. Or hardware being disabled. Did you do a virus scan to make sure you don't have a bug that got in a screwed with your system. Heard of that happening with hard drives so that you couldn't boot. Kinda dumb to have a virus that takes out a Rom drive. But being a nuisance is what those a**holes that start those things are trying for. Did you look at what I asked?
 
I've only got a 20gig IBM 7200rpm hd hooked up on the primary ide, and the cd drive on secondary ide. I tried the cd drive on primary slave but that didn't work at all, I believe that was when I got the aspi or something of that nature error. When booting to the bios, it shows the cd rom detected, and as it's loading it shows it detected (after the ram check), but if I f8 to dos or restart in ms-dos mode (old 98 shut down option) it doesn't pick up the cd drive, as well as not showing it in windows.

It did work, as I installed several programs before it ceased working. I can't imagine I picked up a virus since I hadn't hardly used the computer, it was a pretty fresh install of 98 with ms office, photoshop, pagemaker, some windows updates, and maybe one or two other programs installed. The device manager shows no flags, at all. Everything shows working with no conflicts.

I'll be bringing that computer home tomorrow afternoon to do some more troubleshooting on it.
 
Why would a dead cd rom show in the bios but not in windows though? Wouldn't it just not show up at all? Also, why would it have died from one day to the next without any use? Not to mention the fact that I've tried three of them, one of which I know was functional in a comp I took it out of about 2 weeks ago.
 
Thought of that too, switched it out and put the one that was on the hd on the cd drive, hd booted up, cd didn't...heh.
 
Sounds as if you've tried everything easy to rule out stuff. 3 cd roms, different power cables, ide cables, device manager conflicts... The 2nd reply to your problem suggested a tanked ASPI driver. Starting to sound like you've got a corrupted or missing driver there. Did you try to boot to a 98 Setup disk and try to install with cd rom support or from cd rom and see if it will read from the drive and start the 98 setup program. If it does then your driver that is in the current 98 config may be missing or shot. If it starts the setup it may be wise to just let it run and reinstall, or follow the previous link and try to get the necessary driver for rom drives into the current installation.;)
 
That's my plan for today, I'm going to make a 98 boot disk since booting to cd didn't work, and if I can get it to boot to anywhere that will let me run a windows setup, I'll install 2k. I'm not sure if 98 is what was causing the problem but since all other comps at the office have 2k now, I might as well upgrade. I had gone 98 for easier compatibility with a canon film scanner we have, but I'm sure I can get it working in 2k as well...it just won't work in xp.
 
I seen a virus mdo this as well...

check for ! in the device manager
 
Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor installed
Pri Slave drive - ATAPI Incompatible

That's the error I'm getting now...with only a hard drive on primary as master and only a cd drive on secondary as master...no slaves at all. I don't have a clue why it's giving me the pri slave error.
 
I think the 80 conductor message is telling you that you have an older 40 conductor IDE cable on your primary IDE channel. I've read in some of those hardware bibles as thick as phone books about this. At some point to go any faster on the IDE channel spped they hac to switch from 40 to 80 wire cables. I believe it had to do with isolating wires from each other for error correction purposes. If your BIOS settings and hardware are trying to run past that point it may be trying to detect the cable as well as the drive. I haven't heard of that but it's the only thing that makes sense at this point. I do believe that 80 conductor cables have different colored device plugs where the 40s don't. I have a bunch of stock flat 80 conductor cables and they all have black, gray and blue device plugs. Somebody help me out here. I think black is system board, gray is slave, and blue is master. I may be ass backwards with system and master though. The second line you put in may be a byproduct of the cable. How did you make it this far? Did you try the boot disk thing? Glad to see that you are making some progress.:)
 
I switched ide cables about 4 times...it's blue for board, grey for secondary, black for primary btw. A brand new one that came with a new ECS board was giving me that 80 error, so I just tried cables till one didn't. I tried one of the cd drives in another comp, and it worked (the one I was 99% sure did work, didn't try the other two) and started trying some other stuff. It definitely isn't that cd drive though.

secondary is the primary slave...
Click to expand...

It's not, is it? There's a primary ide slot and a secondary slot, each having master and slave connectors. Primary master is the boot hd, primary slave is empty. Secondary master is the cd drive, secondary slave is empty.

The error was about primary slave, which was empty.

I've got another motherboard/proc combo that was having problems in another computer with blue screening on startup, but I think I might give it a shot. I think part of the aforementioned bluescreens was from the hard drive, which I also got rid of when fixing that comp. I'm running out of ideas, and thinking it may be something with the board...
 
I amassuming that your last error message about the 80 conductor stuff is gone now? Did you try the boot disk and trying to start a 98 install from the cd rom just to see if it works? It still think the low level driver that is necessary for rom drives is tanked. A new version of that driver will come into play during an install.
 
I tried the boot disk, and tried to boot to get it to the cd, or boot with cd support, and to no avail.

edit: btw, what would/could make it go bad? Like I said before, it was working perfectly fine for the first few days, installed ms office 2000 and adobe photoshop/pagemaker, and I highly doubt those program cd's came with viruses or something, not to mention that I've got them on other computers with no problems. I did the basic windows updates for 98, and upgraded to IE6. Other than that, I didn't do anything unusual. I first noticed the problem after not using the comp for a week or two, then trying to install corel draw, and noticed that the cd drive didn't show up.
 
Two suggestions:

1) Take your non-working CD-ROM to another computer with a working CD-ROM. Connect your non-working CD-ROM to that computer and see what happens.

2) Bring a known working CD-ROM and known working IDE cable from another computer to your current computer. Connect the known working CD-ROM using the known working IDE cable to your computer, and see what happens.

Rather than continuing to go roundandround in circles, you need to learn something about what your problem might be (drive, IDE controller, OS configuration, IDE cable, etc.) Doing the above will help accomplish that.
 
Originally posted by pfc_m_drake
Two suggestions:

1) Take your non-working CD-ROM to another computer with a working CD-ROM. Connect your non-working CD-ROM to that computer and see what happens.

2) Bring a known working CD-ROM and known working IDE cable from another computer to your current computer. Connect the known working CD-ROM using the known working IDE cable to your computer, and see what happens.
Click to expand...

I did just that a bit ago, thought I posted that. The cd drive works in another comp flawlessly. The cable also works in the other comp.
 
So you've ruled out every bit of hardware except the mobo or a component on it. Refresh me here this thread is getting strung out a bit. It's starting to get confusing here. The drive(s) work in other computers, just not in this one. When you change to slave on the primary channel which is working, you change the jumper to slave on the rom and it still doesn't work??? You can still boot into windows running from the hard drive correct? Just witout the use of the rom.
 
I guess I missed it. Sorry about that. You problem would then seem to be either the IDE controller on your motherboard or OS configuration.

I'd try and boot from a bootable CD with only the CD-ROM connected to the IDE controller (you can try both IDE controllers, for that matter). Check your BIOS config to make sure you have booting from the CD-ROM enabled.

Just as a shot in the dark, you're not connecting the CD-ROM to a RAID controller on your motherboard by any chance?

Short of the above, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas. I'll keep thinking though.
 
Quick recap since I agree it is getting strung out...

-CD-rom works in another comp, not in this one.
-Comp boots off hard drive with no problems, cd just won't show up in dos or windows, but does show up in bios.
-When changing cd drive from secondary master to primary slave (and changing jumpers), ATAPI error shows up (I think that was the error, I didn't write that one down though, stupid I know) and comp will not boot
-With cd as secondary master, comp boots to windows no problems, but shows no cd
-Can't boot off a cd, it never gets that far with the cd drive showing, yet it does show in the bios still, and is set to cd as first boot device.

Since this board is an older one, I believe an MSI K7T model, I don't thinkit even has raid capabilities. I know very little about raid however so I'm positive I didn't enable any. I've gone through most everything I can think of in windows and have yet to find any errors or anything out of the ordinary, installed norton and ran it, no luck. I'm leaning towards a bad ide channel on the motherboard, though I still have absolutely no idea how it could have gone bad without doing something to alter it.
 
I replaced motherboard, processor, and ram. Started the computer up, booted off the cd (win2k), formatted, reinstalled, and everything is working perfect. I guess it was the motherboard's ide port, which I still don't understand how it could have gone bad without having done anything to it. Thanks for all the help and troubleshooting, that was really a pain in the ass. One of the most annoying errors I've ever encountered.

On a somewhat related note:

Originally posted by pfc_m_drake
You can try installing the Adaptec ASPI drivers for windows. Since you're running Win98, there's a halfway decent chance that will cure the problem.

Download Link
Click to expand...

Oddly enough, thanks. I had another problem I was working on for about 6 hours, this cannon film scanner wouldn't work in win2k at all, I did every windows update and every update I could think of, dl'd the drivers off canon's site and everything...it wasn't detecting the scsi device correctly. Since I know a total of jack about scsi devices, I was at a loss of what to try, then thanks to a google search on my error, and a total of 1 result, it said aspi drivers may help. I remembered seeing your link and downloaded the new adaptec aspi drivers, installed them, and after a short restart, the scanner worked perfectly. That scanner is the primary use of this pc, and the reason I was working so hard to get the cd drive to work was to install the scanner's software and additional software for preparing images.

Thanks again to all who offered suggestions and helped me narrow the problem down as best as possible.
 
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