[Mike1at]

I have a dual boot xp / Win98se system, with a CD-Rom drive and a CD-RW drive.

When I boot the PC under Win98 the drives read and write fine, so I feel confident that the drives and cables are working fine.

But when I boot up under XP, the RW drive will write fine but not read; and the CD-ROM drive will not read either. They do not read data or music cds.

But it seems that XP is at least "recognizing" that I have inserted CDs into the drives, because in the "My Computer" Window, the cd drive icons show a "CD-ROM" label beneath them after I insert disks into them. And on the CD-RW drive, this changes to say "CD-R" when I insert a cd-r disk.

When I say XP won't "read" the CDs, what I mean is XP won't display the contents of any disk from either drive, (But as I mentioned, Win98se displays the contents fine, so I know the drives and cable, motherboard ide controller, etc are functioning properly, at least under Win98se!.


When I double-click to open the CD-ROM drive, I get the following error message Dialog Box:
"Disk is not formated {in the blue title bar of the dialog box}
Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows [OK] "


I figure it must be some kind of software or driver problem.

I'm sure the CD drives had worked fine in the past under XP, so it must be something that I did in the last few months (new software, new drivers, motherboard chipset driver updates (Intel 845G/GL chipset), XP updates, patches, etc. ????)

I uninstalled the only CD burning program I had on the PC - Nero 5.5, but that did not fix the problem.

I wanted to try a "reinstall / repair" from the Windows XP cd but because my cd drives won't read, I can't use the XP Installation CD!

I "deleted" both drives under Device Manager, and then rebooted, allowing XP to "detect new hardware" and automatically install the drivers (these drivers are built-in to XP). This did not fix the problem.

I also stopped all software from loading in my startup group using msconfig. This, also, did not fix the problem.

I'm out of ideas - any thoughts?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[JerryWMac]

Old standby...
If you want to install XP or any other Windows, and you have the disk space to support it...

Make a folder called whatever you want, i.e. Cab, Windowsxp.. etc.etc.

In windows that reads the CD's, copy the Windows XP to that folder, basically and normally only need to copy i386 folder, but if you have the space just copy everything.

Next, if you can... delete and remove Windows XP from your system, becuase something is not right about the way it is setup..
and you do not want it to carry over.

do a complete upgrade to a new folder, maintaining your current windows as in multi boot.

Do a search on the net for a file called
UnknownDeviceIdentifier.exe
In windows XP, install and run the program.
You can not only find what items are not installed, but locate as well the drivers for your particular OS.

By removing XP in the first place you remove the area that is blocking proper reading of your hardware.

 

[Mental_Myopia]

What brand and model are the drives, and what are the jumper settings?

 

[troublesafe]

I'm having the same problem. Both my DVD and CDROM drive are inaccessible. HOWEVER, if I load a disk before booting, XP will recognize the disk. But only that disk, and once I take it out that's it - I can't read anything anymore.
I've read other posts as well where XP would only recognize a disk if it was inserted at boot time, but no resolves.

Anyone any suggestions?