[Jacques]

Upon simply moving the Dell to my place of business, the computer now doesn't reconize the CD-ROM. I checked the device manager and it shows the little infamous explanation point.....I've tried uninstalling, disabling, etc. to no avail. So what's next? Downloading the drivers to floppy?

 

[donniej]

CD drives are cheap and easy to swap, just replace it.

And did you say something about floppy disks... lol

PS. Unless you're still running Windoze 95 or older, you don't need drivers for a CD drive.

 

[Jacques]

CD drives are cheap and easy to swap, just replace it.

And did you say something about floppy disks... lol

PS. Unless you're still running Windoze 95 or older, you don't need drivers for a CD drive.

thanks - it's an 8300 p4 running XP pro - it just so happens to have a floppy so that would be an option....Don't really wanna buy a new ROM if I don't need to.....know what I mean?

 

[donniej]

If you have another computer sitting around then swap out the drive and see if it works. You don't need to mount it, just plug in the 4 wire power plug and 36 pin ribbon connector (data cable). Don't worry abut the 3 pin small wire, it's for playing audio CD's.

 

[Jacques]

If you have another computer sitting around then swap out the drive and see if it works. You don't need to mount it, just plug in the 4 wire power plug and 36 pin ribbon connector (data cable). Don't worry abut the 3 pin small wire, it's for playing audio CD's.

Thanks - I don't have an extra one laying around. I did disconnect power and the data cable - reconected with no luck - guess I'll try the drivers the "LOL" floppy way to see if I can revive it before buying a new one.......

 

[DownNeck]

disconnect and reconnect both ends of ALL cables in the box
reseat all PCI/PCIE cards
reseat ram
reseat cpu
reseat ALL power connectors

if something doesn't work in a computer after you physically moved it, 84.6% of the time it's because you moved it. not because some software magically stopped working.

edit:
does your bios recognize it? put in a windows cd or download a knoppix cd and burn it, then boot the machine up with the cd in the drive. if your machine boots into windows/knoppix, it's a software issue. if your bios doesn't see the cdrom, it's hardware

 

[entropysedge]

+1 to disconnect and reconnect the cable to the drive, had the same thing happen to my dell and that worked to fix it.

 

[mg66]

+1 to disconnect and reconnect the cable to the drive

+ 1 also. First thing I would try. We tend to think of the most complicated solution first when its often the easiest.

Ask yourself what happens when you move a PC that just sits there month after month. Obvious is movement and the obvious result is something came loose and usually a cable.

Check both m/b and dvd/cd ends.

Next I would look for a loose jumper or one that fell off most probably the back of the dvd/cd drive itself rather than the m/b. That little guy should be floating around in the tower somewhere. It happens.