disapperaring drives

[colin_h]

I've got a system running win2000 prof, which has suddenly stopped registering both a cd-rw and dvd-rom. Autorun doesn't work, they don't show up in 'my computer'. (the drives do still spin when i put a disc in but nothing happens-so pressume hardware ok))

Tried to use add/remove hardware and it's wizard but when I try to open it nothing happens.

I've guessed that I've lost the hardware software from windows but I don't know how to put it back on!!

I know that I can run my windows cd if it's in the drive from boot up, but repairing the installation doesn't seem to anything other than scan the present installation- am I missing something!! If I have to re-install will I lose anything of my HDD?

Thanks for any advice. colin

 

[AdamW]

Is it correct to assume the computer is booting off the CD-drive when you put your Windows CD in before boot-up?

 

[colin_h]

Yeah if I put the disc in and restart the computer and then select to run from disc. Having done that it offers several choices one of which is to repair the present installation.

If I choose that option it scans the files and then reboots without actually doing anything!

 

[Porker]

Couple of things to try.

Does your BIOS detect the drives?

Go to Windows Explorer and manually type in the drive letter e.g. E:\ and return. Will it log the drive?

I had a similar problem when I accidently switched drive visibility off but I can't remember exactly how I got them back I could however access them by typing the drive letter. Probably some power toy playing. Took me 6 months before I found where to switch them back on. Do you know what you were doing before they disappeared?

 

[2scoops0406]

Does your user have administrator rights, are other users able to see the drives?

 

[Fatb]

Are both drives on the same IDE cable? If so make the DVD drive the master and the CDRW the slave. But even better is to move the cd-rw onto the same IDe cable as the hard drive and make it a slave.

Fatb