PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: Lona on April 12, 2008, 15:25
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This is quite a weird problem.
My dvd drives disappeared from device manager and when I go into the bios it's gone from there also.
Here's the weird bit. In device manager under disc drives it shows my external hd which is not longer connected to pc.
I went into the bios and removed it and PC wouldn't boot up so had to go back into bios and put it back in.
I can't access safe mode or do a system retore either.
Any help would be appreciated.
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Does the drive which has 'disappeared' actually still work, Lona? I was just wondering if a power lead or IDE connector may have come adrift.
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They must be working, Simon as I can hear the disc trying to play. I thought all I had to do was re-install the drivers but when I try that windows cannot find the drives.
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This any help?
"If DVD/CDs become ?lost?, code 39 error ?Windows cannot load the driver. The driver may be missing or corrupted (Code 39)?.
Go to Device Manager, uninstall CD & DVD drivers. Uninstall Primary and Secondary IDE channels under IDE/ATAPI Controllers - ignore requests to re-boot machine.
Go to Regedit, navigate to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Look for the key which refers to DVD/CD-ROM drives. Delete the subkey UpperFilters, also LowerFilters if it is present.
Re-boot the machine. All should now be well."
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Dvd drives are not showing on disk drives in device manager only this damned external hard drive. If I uninstall it, it appears again on reboot. I have two primary and one secondary ide channels showing in device manager. Should I uninstall the lot?
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It's worth a try, Lona.
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Found the key ok, Rik. No upper filters or lower filters.
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Damn! :( That's solved issues for me in the past, hence I mad a note of the 'cure'.
Where in the BIOS did you remove the external drive?
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when I go into the bios the external disc is listed as my hard drive. When I disable it pc won't boot. I have to enable it again then I can get in but still no dvd drives show in device manager
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That sounds like you have a very confused BIOS. Has anything happened to the machine, eg power surge, any hardware failures?
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not that I know of. Pc was working fine until I put in a cd and it wouldn't read it. That's when I went into device manager and saw my two disc drives were missing
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See what Sandra says, but I'd be inclined to take a note of all the settings, then reset the BIOS to factory defaults and see if that cures it. It sounds to me like its table of devices has become corrupted. Have you checked for viruses and malware?
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when I restore it to default setting, it's the external hard drive that's my main drive.
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Something's not right, I'm just not sure what. :(
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Just a stab in the dark, but this wouldn't be a corrupt MBR would it?
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What's an MBR?
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Just a stab in the dark, but this wouldn't be a corrupt MBR would it?
Only if it isn't actually booting from the internal drive, but that doesn't sound to be the case. :(
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What's an MBR?
Master boot record, the section of the HD that the BIOS uses to find the actual boot sector.
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I think it's Master Boot Record, Lona, and there's a command to 'fixmbr', but don't take my word for it, wait for Sandra or Sam to come along. You could Google it in the meantime, but I'm only guessing, and it might be nothing to do with that. I'll try to be of more help later, when I'm back on my PC.
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Sorry, didn't see Rik's reply before posting that. Seems not to be the case.
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I saw Lonas post earlier on another forum that we are both members of and had suggested what Rik had done re the error 39 thing, so its got me puzzled at the moment.
If reseeting BIOS defaults doesnt fix it then it looks as if the secondary IDE controller isnt enabled in bios.
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What's the difference from the primary ide controller and the secondary ide controller?
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There are 2 IDE channels on earlier motherboards so they designate one as the primary and one as the secondary.
Both work in exactly the same way and it doesnt really matter which one/s is/are used but generally if only one channel is being used, as in your case, then we usually use the primary.
If there is an IDE boot drive then that is usually attached to the primary IDE channel too.
To keep people up to speed we tried a few things while we were chatting on messenger last night.
The CMOS battery was removed and the clear cmos jumper used so that we are definately at bios defaults.
She still has the same problem.
I have been trying to find some screenshots of the bios for that particulat mobo, its an MS 7091.
Its not listed on the MSI site as its a made for medion pcs one.
I think the problem is a bios setting and I think its in the Integrated Peripherals part for the IDE and SATA controllers/drives.
Lonas pc has one 250 gig SATA drive as its boot drive and 2 x IDE DVD drives.
I seem to recall having a similar problem before and I am certain I had to set the sata drive to run as an IDE one and not as I originally thought for it to be set as mixed SATA and PATA.
It was too late to try the various arrangements around that thought by the time wed found the clear cmos jumper and tried a few other things so thats the next thing to try.
If anyone can come up with the correct settings for the SATA and IDE combination that would fix it I am sure.
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In the integrated peripherals part for the ide and sata, Sata is set as ide and the only way the pc will boot up is if I set it to enhanced mode. All others bring up a message to insert the op system disk.
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Problem solved. Ide cable removed from Mobo and re-inserted brought my drives back.
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Don't you just hate it when something so simple fixed things. ;D Well done, Lona. :thumbs:
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Umm... Reply #1...
Does the drive which has 'disappeared' actually still work, Lona? I was just wondering if a power lead or IDE connector may have come adrift.
:o:
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Umm... Reply #1...
:o:
I had checked all the connections, Simon. I had even pulled out the connections from the drives and rebooted, thinking that when I re-connected them PC would find new hardware. What I didn't do was disconnect from the motherboard. None of the connections were loose so I can't give you any brownie points, sorry. ;)
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It may not have been loose, but there was obviously an issue with the connection. Could have just been dust in the contacts, and removing and reinserting it gave it a bit of a clean. :)
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It may not have been loose, but there was obviously an issue with the connection. Could have just been dust in the contacts, and removing and reinserting it gave it a bit of a clean. :)
Could have been all that cigarette ash, Simon. ;)
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Could have been all that cigarette ash, Simon. ;)
More than likely, Lil! ;) ;D
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The msi 7091 motherboard does seem rather quirky to say the very least. I've solved freezing problems by unplugging the data drive connection and plugging it into a different sata port.