DVD Drive not recognized

Iconic

I am trying to reinstall XP on a Dell Dimension 2400 but cannot get it to
recognized the DVD drive.

The bios boot sequence is showing:
1 CD-ROM device (not installed)
2 Hard Disc
3 Diskette Drive

So the machine boots ok but cannot find the DVD drive. However the drive will open and close so the power to it is ok

So far I have reseated and changed the cables without success. I have also tried another dvd drive that I know works but is not recognized in the Dell!

I have removed UpperFilters/LowerFilters in registry as http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116/en-gb Device Manager is not showing any dvd drive and I cannot uninstall the drivers!

Is there anything else I can do?

DatabaseError

not too sure how old that machine is, or whether IDE or SATA.
If it worked before then I guess there can't have been anything wrong with the hardware config, but hey?


If the DVD drive is IDE, make sure it's on it's own channel/cable (ie not sharing with the HDD) and move the jumper on the back of the drive to CS (cable select), that made a difference to one machine I played with.
If it's SATA, just try a different place, ensure hdd is on 1, and dvd is on 2+ (shouldn't matter, but worth trying).


erm...re-read
so currently the machine has XP on it already and the drive isn't recognised, you didn't install XP yourself yet? maybe the drive is borked? With BIOS not showing it that seems likely, but play with cables anyway.

closed

Is it visible in the bios?

hold down F12 when you boot

or use factory restore partition if it has one

why are you reinstalling?

Iconic

Thanks for your reply. It's IDE and on it's own cable. The jumper was already on CS but I moved it to Master but that didn't make any difference.

I have only just got the machine from a boot sale so I don't know the background to it. It didn't have a hard drive so I put one in that already had XP on it. It loads ok but does not see the drive! I thought Windows would automatically find the drivers for the drive even though the bios showed it as not installed.

I cannot reinstall XP until the drive is seen!

Iconic

closed wrote: »

Is it visible in the bios?

hold down F12 when you boot

or use factory restore partition if it has one

why are you reinstalling?

It's not visible. The hdd passes drive 0 in the primary IDE with no ide device in drive 1.
There are no drives showing in the Secondary IDE.

I am reinstalling to get the right version of XP on the machine...ie to match the serial number on the side of it!

closed

Is the second ide channel set to auto detect, assuming it's plugged into a different connector on the motherboard?

TimothyEBaldwin

Is the interface that the drive is connected to recognised?

closed

There will be 2 ide connectors on the motherboard, one goes to the hd (primary channel master), one goes to the dvd (secondary master), set both drive jumpers for master.

boot, go into bios, make sure both master channels are set to auto detect, and both slave channels are set to none

press F12 at boot with a boot cd in.

KillerWatt

The reason the drive is reported as "Not installed" is because it has been disabled in the BIOS.
Press F2 when prompted to enter the BIOS setup, and it will more than likely be on the first page.

Iconic

Many thanks for all your great help. It's sorted!

I took the hard drive out to change the jumper to master as advised by closed. When I then switched on the machine I got a message 'invalid IDE configuration' and then it appeared to change it. I then went into the bios and the drive was showing!!!! I then booted with a cd in and it worked.

I can now reinstall XP.

Many thanks again for all your help.