Can't access CD ROM, explorer keeps hanging ??

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Robert Macy - 06 Oct 2005 19:06 GMT

Used to have a single CD ROM, set up as master at the end of the cable.
Added another CD ROM, for R/W, set up as slave.

Boot up everything lists ok. Yet, can't access information on CD ROM

Went back to single CD ROM [original setup] and still disk won't read
info. Worse, Windows Explorer badly hangs trying to read the disk.

google searches yielded a lot of "perfect" informative resources which
are gone! ...as usual.

A check with the manufacturer who now only makes PC MotherBds : "aw,
it's just standard. Try changing the jumpers all over." Wouldn't
changing back to the original setup cover that?

Can't install any Windows 98 from my CD now and the "auto play" feature
doesn't even automatically play a music CD like it used to.

Where to look, what to do?

- Robert -

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Don Phillipson - 06 Oct 2005 22:41 GMT

> Used to have a single CD ROM, set up as master at the end of the cable.
> Added another CD ROM, for R/W, set up as slave.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> it's just standard. Try changing the jumpers all over." Wouldn't
> changing back to the original setup cover that?

You seem to be saying that neither CD drive now reads a disk.
1. Write down present jumper settings.
2. Connect old CD ROM drive as Master only (as formerly).
Does it read a disk?
3. Connect new CD RW drive as Master only. Does it read
a disk?

If #2 and #3 are both No, and if drives were correctly jumpered,
the cable or MB may be faulty. Check both drives in another PC.
(CD drives usually fail after several years' use.)

You may find that under Win98 two CD drives should be connected
on the same IDE line with the RW drive as Master and the ROM
drive as slave (correctly jumpered.)

Signature

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

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Robert Macy - 07 Oct 2005 03:52 GMT

Thank you for your reply.

I left the cables in their original locations and installed a slave HD
earlier, with no problems. Note: the HD drives are connected to the
secondary, whatever that means. And the CD-ROM is connected to the
primary. Seems intuitively backwards. Have two machines and they are
both physically the same. Sadly, second machine's primary bus
interface died, so can't use the unit completely.

I used to have CD ROM set up as master at the end of the cable. Worked
great, played audio instantly using Microsoft media player when a CD
was put in [has an "analog" audio cable over to the MotherBd]

The original CD ROM is a Shuttle Model SD 521, that said 52X on it.
Note: the spacewalker website has no reference to this model. Call to
their California office got a technician who said "change jumpers
everywhere, and keep trying", but no source for information.

Now need Read/Write so bought a CD RW - only care about data, no
movies, nor audio, so bought LG Electronics 12X, couldn't find a model
name anywhere on the label, but was built in July 2001. Installed this
as slave in the middle of the cable. Originally used the CD ROM to
read the CD to install the R/W software.

Now, boot up shows both units clearly, and the Windows Explorer shows
both drive letters correctly.

For the software to burn CD's, I bought very inexpensive NERO Express.
Installed software, and burned some CD's with data sets.

After that installation I may, or may not, have ever been able to use
the CD drives by themselves. Don't remember. Think so. But not sure.

To go back, I tried the CD ROM 52X as master only unit on the bus, but
that does not work. If I try to access either disk drive using Windows
Explorer, neither drive spins up [even with autorun enabled], and
Win98SE hangs big time - have to power OFF. Checking with
ctrl-alt-del, it appears that "explorer" is getting hung up. This
problem may somehow relate to other bouts of unstableness. I can get
the computer back sometimes by ejecting the disk. Then after long
wait, sometimes works again.

Today, if, I use NERO Express to access either drive, either drive
spins up and the directories are successfully read. That means the bus
works and the drives work, but NERO Express has ruined everything.
Unfortunately, Nero doesn't let me do what I need with the information
on the disk, so I can't "get by". Like I can't copy a data disk to the
HD as intact data.

Still don't understand how the test using the single CD ROM didn't
work, but the problem may be that NERO Express is still installed and
somehow is still getting in the way. .

Answers to your tests:
1) CD ROM 52X is master - end of cable
CD RW 12X is slave - middle of cable

2) old unit as master [which has been shown to work] and installed as
the only unit does NOT work.

3) Didn't try, but suspect will get same results as 2)

I thought about your point that the RW should be master and maybe the
drives should be reversed in status. Do you REALLY think that will
work? Since the single, original CD ROM as master did not work, it
probably is a waste of time.

I hate to uninstall NERO only to find that I can't reinstall *any*
software using a CD.

Any ideas on how to fix this problem without changing anything?

- Robert -

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Robert Macy - 08 Oct 2005 16:35 GMT

NEW INFO...

When starting in SAFE mode there is no driver for CD,
However, when starting from bootable disk and selecting 1) "...with CD
support."; either disk works absolutely correctly.

After inserting a CD the drive spins up, and at any time if select
anything from either f: or g: drive, f: or g: drive spins up and reads
whatever info I need on the CD's.

So

What happens between everything working, and then not working?

This all started when I tried to install another printer driver and the
stupid wizard keeps giving the wrong location to look for the driver,
as D:\Win98 When I select f:[where the CD is]Win98 hangs so bad
have to power down. Remember, C: and D: are both hard drives now!
Really, really difficult to get that wizard to look any where else.

- Robert -

Reply to this Message

glee - 09 Oct 2005 06:21 GMT

Start in SAFE MODE, then open Device Manager:
Right-click My Computer, click Properties on the menu that appears, then click the
Device Manager tab.

Expand the CDROM category by clicking on the + sign next to it. Your CD and CD-RW
drives should be listed there, and possibly some other non-existent ones, and maybe
some duplicates. For each drive that you recognise, double-click it and click the
Settings tab, then note what drive letter you have it set to, under Reserved Drive
Letters. You will need to come back here after all the optical drives have been
re-detected, and set the drive letters back to what you want.

Click Cancel to return to the Device Manager screen.
Select each drive listed under the CDROM category, and click Remove.

Then expand the Hard Disk Controllers category, and remove the parent items in that
list, and all duplicates.
If there is an "Other" category, expand it and remove all items in it.
Click OK, then restart in normal mode and let Windows redetect it all. When it
wants to reboot after the first Hard Disk controller detection, say no, then let
Windows continue to identify the secondary controller. You may reboot after that.

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> NEW INFO...
>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> - Robert -

Reply to this Message

Robert Macy - 09 Oct 2005 17:06 GMT

Thank you very much for your excellent directions.

There was no "other" category and no duplicates, or unknowns. Simply
the C and D HD and the E and F CD drives.

After doing your suggested sequence, the assigned drive letters stayed
the same. During reboot, I was not asked prematurely if I wanted to
reboot. I suspect that was because the HD's were on the secondary
channel. The displays showing "Settings" changed slightly for each
drive. The assigned letter came up the same, but the range shown down
below the setting either went blank or went gray. I guess that meant
something happened.

Sadly, the symptom persists.

If I insert a CD into the drive, it does not autmatically spin
[although set in that mode] and try to use Windows Explorer to view the
disk causes Windows to hang forever. ctrl-alt-del shows that
"explorer" is not responding. I suspect the system is waiting for a
spin up which never happens. I used to power off here, but now I
learned I can remove the disk and after long delay the little message
"can't read disk, retry or cancel" comes up and I can regain operation
of the system.

My workaround was to reboot using a floppy with CD support, copy my
Win98 CD to a directory on the C: drive, reboot normally, THEN install
any necessary programs from the C: drive folder. A bit clumsy, but
worked.

Still don't see why the CD's don't work under full blown Win98.

- Robert -

Reply to this Message

glee - 09 Oct 2005 20:41 GMT

I am frankly having a hard time believing that the hard drives are connected to the
secondary IDE channel, while the optical drives are connected to the primary
channel. This is bass ackwards and I have not ever seen such a setup, let alone
two. The only time I have seen the opticals on the primary channel is when the hard
drives are either SCSI, SATA, or connected to a separate IDE controller card such as
a Promise or Siig controller.

Are you *quite sure* that you have that configuration? You mentioned that you have
Nero Express installed. You may also have the Nero InfoTool (InfoTool.exe) in the
Nero ToolKit. Run that utility and post back with how it shows your primary and
secondary channel configuration. That info should also be available on the boot
screens prior to Windows starting.

Also copy and paste the contents of the autoexec.bat and config.sys files into your
reply. You can copy them by clicking Start> Run, type sysedit and click OK; then
copy the contents of those two files.

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> Thank you very much for your excellent directions.
>
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>
> - Robert -

Reply to this Message

Robert Macy - 10 Oct 2005 01:56 GMT

Thank you for your reply.
Perhaps, I should go into safe mode, delete all the drives from the
hardware setup, turn off the PC, switch cables and turn back on. Is
primary/secondary use important. I couldn't find any comment about
their "proper" configuration on the net. Only a comment about being
certain HD's on one and CD's on another, else there is over a 7 times
slow down in data transfers.

Boot screen lists exactly the same configuration as Nero toolkit

primary IDE channel, both are DMA on, Autorun on
0-0 E-IDE CD-ROM 52X L
0-1 CD-RW CED-8120B

secondary IDE channel
GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE 00
GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE 01

Interestingly some of the Nero tools didn't work on the CD's one of
them didn't show anything and when it should spin up the disk it "hung"
until I manually ejected the disk. Just like the symptom when using
Windows Explorer. However, that same Nero program area would eject the
disk when requested to as long as I didn't ask for any information
regarding the contents of either of the disks.

The true Nero toolkit however, would spin up a disk and read the
contents quite nicely. Odd that part works, but different area of Nero
I guess.

contents are a bit anemic, but I understand, not necessary for Win98
...AUTOEXEC.BAT

rem - By Windows Setup - MSCDEX /D:IDECD000
PATH C:\BITWARE\

C:\VIAUDIO\VIAUDIO.COM
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D0 P300

Bitware is original to the machine and I believe is the modem and fax
control features. It supposedly stores the autoexec.bat file to go
back to, which contains the single line
MSCDEX /D:IDECD000

Interesting, since the CDROM is now associated with E: and F:

Contents of config.sys

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS.000\setver.exe

DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE.SYS /D:IDECD000 /UDMA /Q

Wow! That doesn't look right. I wonder why that never got updated to
reflect the system. I still remember seeing that both these files can
be deleted? I saw that somewhere on the net, about deleting both these
files makes no difference.

*IF* config.sys is used, this explains the symptoms I see. Boot from
floppy with CD support works perfectly. Nero can burn CD's *and* read
disks. However, after a normal boot of Win98, it's as though the
system lost where the CD's are. I'll temporarily rewrite config.sys to
show one, then two CD's and see what happens.

I copied both of these files by simply using notebook and ctrl-c to
scoop them up. Does that give the same information as the sequence you
suggested?

- Roberet -

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Robert Macy - 10 Oct 2005 03:04 GMT

Wow! don't recommend changing config.sys willy-nilly like that!

after making the second line
DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE.SYS /E:IDECD000 /UDMA /Q
and rebooting...

I couldn't get Windows Explorer to work, then it did work and then hung
etc. Hung up so badly the front power switch didn't even turn off the
PC, had to use the rocker switch mounted on the back. But now back to
"normal" with CD drives still not working right.

- Robert -

Reply to this Message

glee - 10 Oct 2005 03:53 GMT

Yes, I don't doubt you had some problems when you did that. The "/D:" switch id NOT
referring to the drive letter D:. It is a commandline switch for the DOS driver
(IDE.SYS) that indicates the device name. /D:IDECD000 means the Device Name is
IDECD000. Changing the switch to /E must have thrown the boot process for a loop.

Re: your other reply, I suggest for the time being that you rename the autoexec.bat
and config.sys files in the root of the C: drive, to autoexec.ba_ and config.sy_

I strongly suggest that you set your hard drives to the Primary IDE controller on
the motherboard, and the optical drives to the Secondary IDE controller.
additionally, you should make the CD-RW the secondary Master, and the CD-ROM the
secondary Slave. This involves not just switching their locations on the data
ribbon cable, but also changing the jumper setting on both drives, so that the CD-RW
has its jumper set to Master, and the CD drive has its jumper set to Slave. The
hard drives should not need any jumper changes.

After that has been done (obviously with the computer turned off and unplugged), you
will need to start the machine and enter the BIOS Setup program. There you must run
the BIOS' HDD Auto-configuration menu option to have all the IDE drives redetected.
When that is done successfully, you can reboot and restart Windows.

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> Wow! don't recommend changing config.sys willy-nilly like that!
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> - Robert -

Reply to this Message

Robert Macy - 10 Oct 2005 18:03 GMT

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU ! ! !

I did both changes. I don't know which solved the problem but now it
works perfectly.

I examined the cabling placed there by the manufacturer and it does
indeed appear that the HD was always on the secondary channel.

But doesn't matter now. HD's on primary. CD's on secondary and master
is the CD-RW and slave is the CD ROM

Boot up actually went through totally automatically without
intervention. But still during boot up, I did stop at the boot up
screen to check the drives were being read in properly [they were]
Then after boot up, I went to Nero and the drive information is there
properly presented too.

Put a disk in either CD drive and the disk spins up and changes the
label in Windows Explorer.

Thank you again for taking the time to help me with this [simple to
you] problem. And thank you for being very precise in your
descriptions of the steps to take.

- Robert -

Reply to this Message

glee - 11 Oct 2005 05:21 GMT

You're welcome! I'm glad you have the system working correctly now. It really
makes my day, and hey, the thread was starting to get too long anyway, right? ;-)

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU ! ! !
>
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> - Robert -

Reply to this Message

Robert Macy - 11 Oct 2005 18:02 GMT

In reviewing the length of the thread it appears *I'm* the one
responsible for its length. But, hey, I just wanted to be precise,
complete in the descriptions of the symptoms, tests, and results.

My biggest complaint about most of the documentation I've seen is not
just about its "circular" qualities [Definition of BLUE is BLUE in
color.], but total "handwaving". How can anyone not knowledgeable read
between the lines?

I think you fixed another problem I was having with "explorer" hanging.
There's another thread around here for that one.

I also noticed that my applications seem to load much faster. For
example, after a double click on a .pdf file, Adobe is up 3 times
faster now.

- Robert -

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