Topic: I've lost my dvd drive

[grt]

I've been messing about with my spare computer and deleted '98 and loaded 3.1 (I was experimenting OK!!!) . Now I cannot get my DVD-ROM to work , even from first switch on or with a boot disk . This means I cannot use my system restore disks .

Help !!!!!

GRT

[Clive]

Ah!  The wonderful Windows 3.1    I wouldn't have thought that it supports a DVD drive though and that is probably where your problem lies.   But wait for a techie to confirm this first.

[grt]

I had thought about that but the computer will usualy boot from cd in the dvd drive or at least with a boot disk . I have tried all my old boot disks and even tried a brand new one as recomended elsewhere on this site , all to no avail .

It is almost like when my darling son switched the floppy drive off on our new PC using setup . But pressing F1 when I boot doesn't give me the setup dialogue . How do I access it when running DOS ?

[Simon]

Just a crazed rambling, but would it be possible to enter the BIOS (hit DEL just after post screen), and make it boot from the CD/DVD drive?  Then just bung in your Windows CD and reboot.  Just an idea until a proper techie comes along.  We do have some somewhere, but some of them tend to be nocturnal.  

[grt]

Yes , that is what I was trying to do .

Have done it and it still doesn't work - I'm starting to think this shopuld be in hardware - not software .

[Simon]

Well, it doesn't really matter where it is, as long as it gets sorted, GRT.  It's probably more of a software problem, as there's nothing actually wrong with your hard drive, as far as we know.  It's just that you can't load Windows onto it.

Hopefully someone more technical will be along to help soon.  

[grt]

I'm not so sure . I've got no power light and it won't open . But that happened when my lad switched the floppy off in the bios which is why I thought it was that .

GRT

[Simon]

Is the BIOS set to auto detect your drives?  And does the DVD drive show?

[Dack]

Dos/Windows 3.11 requires a device driver before it can access the CD/DVD drive (a device driver in CONFIG.SYS and then MSCDEX.EXE in your autoexec.bat file - MSCDEX standing for Microsoft CD Extensions).

Easiest way is probably to download the 98 Bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com

This of course would only work if your bios was set to boot from floppy before trying the hard drive. Depending on the motherboard there are usually several ways of entering the bios:

1. Holding down 'DEL', 'F1', 'F2' on switch on
2. Holding down CTRL-ALT-ESC at the same time

Failing that if you reset the cmos on the motherboard then it should usually stop with an error and tell you which key to press

[grt]

I have set the BIOS to boot from floppy , then cd , then hdd . Boot disk run through everything and tells me that my cd drive is drive E: - then nothing , no power , won't open , won't read .
Think I will have to try swapping with a CD from another 'puter .

[grt]

for the suggestions .

However it was just coincidence that the CD packed up whilst I was playing .

Nicked a CD drive out of my lad's computer and plugged it in and it booted straight away .

Thanks anyway

Giles :brick:

[Simon]

Thanks for letting us know, Giles!