Techy stuff..

[Alan Davies]

I give mine some chicken soup. That cures anything and everything.

That's known as an engineers reset in the IT world. You could also be suffering from an RTFM problem.

[Alan Davies]

I give mine some chicken soup. That cures anything and everything.

That's known as an engineers reset in the IT world. You could also be suffering from an RTFM problem.

F*cked up there and answered the wrong post. Looks like I need to RTFM

[Pete T]

I assume it started working because you switched it off and then back on again.  It's the modern day universal cure that has replaced just simply kicking it.

..nope. Did that many times after replacing it. I think it may have been one of those "I'll check your computer to see if it's working OK" things..

[Pete T]

CD drive is now listed again. I can copy CDr's.
Now who wanted what? Deke's Radio shows? Deke's "desert island discs". Oakers, I know what you want.. I think..
Can people's confirm in a PM please.. Along with address's..

[Pete T]

BLOODY COMPUTERS..

It did an automatic update overnight, and re-started itself. CD/DVD drive is now missing again, it'll be back in a few weeks maybe?

Managed to copy what I need to, but no "extras"..

Be in the post for those who made requests.. but if anyone can shed any light on why my drive is missing, I'd be grateful..

If I put a CD in, it whirrs and lights flash, but the PC doesn't recognise the drive.. then after two or three weeks, the drive is there. No re-starts, no removing drives, nothing, zilch, its's just there and working fine.. Re-start, and it's gone, mysteriously re-appearing sometime in the future.. Recently checked/upgraded drivers, and have run several tests, without success.. It's getting a tad tiresome now.. No explanation why it starts up again.. I've looked at "device manager" without sucess..

(this was a recently fitted replacement drive, which didn't work initially, but then worked without any probs..)

Tommorrow, I could run "Winamp", and the drive's back.. Currently it's not.. ..nor can I see it under "Computer", or "network"..

[Pete T]

..it's back..

[Tel]

Pete

The only thing I can thnk of (apart from the fact it's a Dell - nuff said) is try changing the drive assignment as it could be clashing with something else.

In XP you go into the Control Panel, Select Adminstrative tools, Computer Management, and click on Disk Management.

In the right hand window you'll see the CD Drive with it's designated drive letter. Click on the details (small box) and you should see a menu that says Change Drives and Path. Select this and it will bring up the drive letter. Select change and change to a higher drive letter (usually H or higher to allow for USB sticks etc.).

Machine may need a reboot to be ensure it picks it up correctly.

May not solve the problem but certainly worth a try. this sort of problem became a real pain when USB devices appeared - especially memory sticks, phones and MP3 players.

[Martin Daughton]

That's exactly why I renamed my CD drive X:

[Pete T]

Got Vista, but found my way there, and renamed to X, now for the re-start.. Fingers crossed..

[Pete T]

Un-cross fingers. That didn't work..
No drive (D) or (X)..

PDF Screenshot attached..
No.. Word doc attached.. I've had to shrink it down to get to load:
No.. Can't work out how to save a screenshot as one of the allowable file formats, of a size that is viewable..
Basically it says in the small left box:

Disc 0
Basic
298.09 GB
Online

..and in the box to the right..

(C:) 298.09 GB NTFS
HEALTHY (system, boot, page file, active, crash dump, primary partition)

Obviously this is the computer hard drive.
No mention of D: or X:

[Pete T]

Just done another re-start, it's still not there.. Weird..

[Martin Daughton]

I would take it out, check the jumpers and make sure it's not set up to be a slave. Then put it back in and make sure all the connections are well seated.

[Tel]

Hi Pete

Martin's post would be my next check.

Is it an IDE connection? If Martin's check doesn't fix things then a new IDE cable maybe needed - available from all reputable computer shops and PC World as well!!

The existing one may have a small nick which is causing an intermittent break. Ribbon cables are a lot more fragile than people believe.

[Rob W]

The existing one may have a small nick which is causing an intermittent break. Ribbon cables are a lot more fragile than people believe.

Ahhhhh, I understand all this b*ll*x now. If Nick's involved, why not just crintabulate it?

And  Nick. Sorry about your size matey.  Girl once finished with me, can you believe she said it was because my willy was just 4 inches.

She said it was too wide     

That's more like it. Let's talk about proper things     

[Pete T]

As you know, my hard drive is a bit dickie.. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.. Been without it for a few weeks, and it appeared again. Had to do a restart, and it was still there.. maybe it's fixed itself?

my "m's" don't work too well either, having to cut and paste these, so if in future posts you see two "nn's" where an "m" should be, you'll know why, and not criticise nny spelling..!!