HELP!!! - CD ROM suddenly not working

[marwar]

For some reason my CD Rom suddenly stopped working. It has power (light is on) and is picked up in explorer but when your try and access it I get a device not ready (or similar) message. Whether a coincidence or not I also cannot get the computer to detect my zip drive (parallel port). If I connect the printer up to this port it works fine. I know the zip is ok as it works on my laptop.
The only thing I can think of is that when setting a password in bios the other day I may have accidentally changed a setting although I don't think I did.
For the record the system is only a few months old - P111 850 running win 98 se
Any ideas gratefully accepted. I should say I am a bit of a newbie so please try and simplify any ideas.

[Chris1259]

Marwar
Hi very possible that you did change something in the bios, not hard to do at all.
In any event easy enough to fix, providing you didnt open the tower up and static charge anything.
What are the system specs?
With out the specs try this.. Restart the system, hit the delete key upon restarting will get you into the cmos.
Check under standard CMOS features,Your cd rom I must assume is on your secondary IDE controller hopefully set as master click on/or scroll down and enable auto detect.
The zip is probally on the secondary channel set as slave, again enable auto detect.
Exit and save changes.
Should work fine, would have been able to give you more if I knew something about the system.
HERE is an important NOTE...
When you have the time its a good idea to go into your cmos and/or Bios and see exactly what the setting on ALL of the standard bios featues andd intergrated Peripherals and chip sets etc. It will take you a while BUT well worth the effort. Copy down in a notebook (harder to loose) and keep it in a safe place. It will save you a lot of time, if things go astray in the future or when the cmos battery finally dies.
Hope this helps you
Chris

[marwar]

Chris.

Thnx for the reply (I am at work so can't check until later).
Basic system specs are p111 850, 20 gig hard drive, 128m RAM.If you were more referring to BIOS type etc I will have to post that tomorrow.

Also, do you think if I just hit restore defaults in BIOS that would work or would that maybe do more harm than good?

Thnx again.

[Chris1259]

Marwar
If you built the machine and know what the defaults where initially, then I would say restore them. If NOT then dont.
In addition, DMA comes to mind, have you enabled this?
Right click my computer, scroll to properties, click on properties, you will see the system property pop up, go to device manager, open cd rom folder right click on it, go to properties, go to settings.

Disconnect is probally checked
Auto insert notification is checked
DMA is mostly likely checked
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the sync data transfer be checked!
I know you are new so I tried to make it easy, which by the way it is sounds difficult but not hard at all.
Before any of this is attempted, follow the instructions in my previous post. When everything is auto detected, that should remedy everything.

Let me Know
Chris

[marwar]

Chris,

Hi - well fixed half the problem...yay and thanks

I set prime master and slave and secondary master and slave to auto detect...it detected my cd rom and when it booted it also detected my zip drive.

The zip drive now works perfectly....however I still have the same problem with the cd rom :-(

It gets power... the light is on and when I put a cd in it makes a whirring noise but it doesnt work (data or cd discs).

If its any help....I have AMIBIOS Simple Setup Utility v1.20e... CD ROM is OEM CD-ROM/FSA which is connected to secondary slave (although there is nothing connected to secondary master - could that be an issue?)

Not sure what else to tell you.... as always all help appreciated.

[welsh wizard]

Jumper your CD rom to master and try it again on the secondary IDE as master, ( i quite often find CD Roms that are set on the secondary as master some times fail but on changing jumpers from Master to slave they start working again, not had it the other way round yet, but it may be worth the time to try it out, ( probable reason for this working is that when set to one possition a circet fails on the CD roms mother board, nad changing the jumper routes the around the bad circit Just at thought.)

WW

[Chris1259]

Welsh makes a good point in reverse the 2.
The jumpers are located on the back of the cd rom... Master...Slave and cable select DO NOT use the cable select mode.

Do you have a "spare cdrom" in which you can substitute, anyone one will do.

let me know
Chris