CD-ROMs Failing In Win2k & XP Boxes? 116
jptechnical writes "I have an interesting hardware/software development brewing. I have a friend with a computer shop down the way and he has had a rash of nearly a dozen Win2k & XP boxes come through with disabled or missing CD-ROM drives. They work in DOS, and are bootable, but are either disabled, not functioning or simply missing in Windows' device manager. Does anyone know of a virus that may be causing this? I cannot find any common vector from system build to software installed or anything. MS says reformat, but where's the fun in that? What resources aside from MSKB and google searching do slashdot readers use for troubleshooting strange problems?"
Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
I do want to ask, though, have you tried them in safe mode? Have ya tried flushing the BIOS? Have you been able to rule out anything i.e. CD burning software?
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Ahem. In Soviet LA, it happened when you had your CDRom in Comrade Mode on the second IDE port with a Comrade HD.
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
Comrade mode....lol.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Fuck whatever L.A. says, I'm not going to start calling my hard drive primary drive on the primary controller when I can say it all in Primary Master.
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
As an aside, I installed Veritas' CD/DVD burning software (or possibly the packet writer software) that came with the company's new Sony USB2/Fireware DVD rewriter and st one point in the installation it said that it had to disable the built-in XP burning software, was that okay? Hell yes! Nicest thing a program has ever offered to do.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Rebooting or reinstalling the drivers generally tends to fix it. I've never had that problem out of Linux though, even with identical hardware(in the case of the NIC).
I've seen this too. (Score:2)
I've seen this too. There is something squirrely about Win XP. It has memory management problems, it appears. If one program fails, it will sometimes corrupt the memory space of another program, or the OS itself.
(No offense to squirrels. They are cute, friendly animals. But, operating systems should not act like them.)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Working CD-ROM drive. (Also, improvement in speed and security).
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Reference for above comment [slashdot.org] for those that didn't pay attention last time around.
And the followup story [slashdot.org] with the fix.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
illegal software (Score:5, Informative)
buy it, or find a corp version without a crack
There was a virus that did this, in fact. (Score:4, Funny)
You could be in serious trouble. There was such a virus [elsop.com] - or at least it had the powers to do what you are experiencing.
I got infected with this virus once. It caused uncontrollable cachinnation.
Re:There was a virus that did this, in fact. (Score:2)
Ha, ha, very funny! <g/d/r>
Definitely viruses (Score:4, Funny)
Mark this one funny! (Score:2)
Not necessarily a virus (Score:1)
http://support.microsoft.com/d
Same problem (Score:2)
Is This Just in Windows ? (Score:2, Informative)
Being able to boot and work off MSDOS is just a basic confidence test and once you load up something a bit more meaty things sometimes start to go wrong. Some other thoughts:
Bad batch of motherboards or IDE cables ?
Bad batch of power supplies or very cheap PSUs that can't handle the load? I've seen REAL flaky things happen when a power supply goes b
Re:Is This Just in Windows ? (Score:1)
update IDE/motherboard drivers (Score:2)
Did these machines work then all of a sudden not, or DOA?
BIOS settings (Score:4, Insightful)
Have him check to see if the BIOS is recognizing anything on that IDE chain. If not, set it to auto detect and that should do the trick.
Re:BIOS settings (Score:2)
My 'common vector' (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My 'common vector' (Score:1)
Re:My 'common vector' (Score:1, Funny)
er...actually, Your Mileage May Vary.
Re:My 'common vector' (Score:1, Informative)
Re:My 'common vector' (Score:4, Funny)
What resources aside from MSKB and google searchin (Score:4, Funny)
A. I just post a question to ask slashdot, and have all the geeks trying to avoid troubleshooting at their jobs do it for me.
Re:What resources aside from MSKB and google searc (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:What resources aside from MSKB and google searc (Score:2)
A. I just post a question to ask slashdot, and have all the geeks trying to avoid troubleshooting at their jobs do it for me.
Heck, most Ask Slashdotters don't even bother with the first two options.
Use Google, with site:microsoft.com (Score:5, Informative)
Tips:
When searching for a Microsoft document, don't use the Microsoft search engine. It's terrible. Use Google, with as part of the search parameters.
I agree. It sounds like a virus.
Certainly the first thing to do is to discover if the BIOS is seeing the drives, which it is if you can see the drive in DOS.
If it's not a virus, suspect human involvement. Maybe someone ran the same program on all the computers. Such as a screen saver, for example. It would be very much like someone with no computer experience to run a screen save they got off the internet and to forget that they did it.
Show all "Ghost" drives and devices. (Score:3, Informative)
Adding to my post above, also see this article: Display All Devices That Are Connected to a Windows XP-Based Computer [microsoft.com]
Re:Use Google, with site:microsoft.com (Score:1)
Actually, I've seen the drives disappear a number of times due to a bug when removing Easy CD Creator. CD-ROM Access Is Missing and Messages (in device mgr) Cite Error Code 31, Code 32, Code 19, or Code 39 After You Remove Easy CD Creator in Windows XP [microsoft.com] or look for the registry patch near the bottom of this page [aumha.org].
Re:Use Google, with site:microsoft.com (Score:2)
Format the drives (Score:2)
I have a copy of "linux 9" I'll sell ya
Re:Format the drives (Score:3, Informative)
Same Problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Same Problem (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Same Problem (Score:2)
Now if only I could get my XP Pro box to Standby without hanging, then I'd be a happy clam.
I get something a bit like this (Score:2)
I hate Windows.
Re:I get something a bit like this (Score:1)
Good Luck.
Oh, and as far as the original topic. Never encoutered it in my cdr or dvdr drives. I would try the solution that some else has already mentioned. Remove the device from the hardware profile after succesful detection. Then shutdown. Unplug the IDE and power from it (check the jumpers of t
When in doubt, delete (??) (Score:3, Informative)
registry entry (Score:2)
Other OSes. (Score:1)
Resources? (Score:1, Redundant)
What resources aside from MSKB and google searching do slashdot readers use for troubleshooting strange problems?
Why, "Ask Slashdot", of course! Hell, oftentimes people just skip the first two resources you listed and just go directly to option #3.
GMD
Ask on a forum (Score:1)
Try some online forums. I suggest www.tek-tips.com [slashdot.org] and www.experts-exchange.com [slashdot.org]. There are usually tons of helpful people on those boards. Just remember to help other users solve their problems as well.
Re:Ask on a forum (Score:2)
Previous history... (Score:1)
Re:Previous history... (Score:2)
their are no computer virii, just a lot of viruses.
Re:Previous history... (Score:1)
Not exactly the same problem, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ive been having the same problem! (Score:1)
iTunes (Score:1)
SCSI (Score:2)
Weird.
Run a virus scan, Einstein (Score:1, Flamebait)
You're welcome.
Filter Driver? (Score:2, Informative)
Clearly... (Score:1, Troll)
Underpowered (Score:3, Informative)
Upon a reboot, they would miraculously return, but quite often went away again after a heavy burning operation of something similar. Putting a decent Antec power supply in fixed things up... guess the drives weren't getting enough juice under the old one.
Re:Yeah (Score:1)
Related Issue? (Score:1)
Device manager shows the error code "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)" The knowlege base solution to this problem is "Restart the computer" which is not very helpful.
In the first instance I traced the pro
sabotage (Score:2)
sales (Score:1)
anticmos (Score:1)
I *have* experienced this problem!! (Score:1)
This problem only shows up when I'm using win2k or winxp. I've replaced the drive, the power supply, reformatted, etc. but it keeps happening when I'm using windows 2k/xp. The ironic thing is that I have two optical drives in this computer and only the first one disappears.
Dirty Lens (Score:1)
Similar? (Score:1)
Very peculiar.
iTunes installed? (Score:2)
We see this quite often and seldom is it the drive (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We see this quite often and seldom is it the dr (Score:1)
remove the dependencies of the folowing keys (but NOT the keys) after uninstall the apps... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\C
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Cont
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Curr
Late response but the answer is... (Score:1)
While I (Score:2)
set the hdd to master (Score:1)
i first came across this problem when they installed the hdd
i also had a client that brought his system in because the cdrom wasn't working and it turn out to be that someone unpluged it and installed a crack version of XPpro but he said he knew nothing about that(maybe the pixies did it) so to stop this
D'oh. MSKB=MS Knowledge Base (More) (Score:2)
Do some poking around over there. I usually find all sorts of help.
Re:D'oh. MSKB=MS Knowledge Base (More) (Score:1)
Re:D'oh. MSKB=MS Knowledge Base (More) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"Common Vector"? (Score:5, Informative)
When you determine the common vector for a system failure like this you find the "common" symptom that points to a common problem and therefore can be fixed.
~foooo