Strange bug

[Seravajan]

I can no longer use standard CD-ROMs under my WIN XP pro (it worked for several weeks and suddenly no longer). It tells me every time that it can not read the CD ROM. And it means that the CD-ROM has an unrecognized file system or the cd is damaged.

Please help me

Yours Seravajan

[blakerwry]

I can no longer use standard CD-ROMs

what do you mean by standard cd ROMs, do you mean you can read cd-r's you've burned but not store bought CD's (pressed)


anyway....

One of the 1st steps to troubleshooting your problem would be to try several CD's, and see which ones can/can't be read...

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I assume you've tried to read both cd's you've bought (pressed) and cd's that have been burned... Do any work?

If some work and others do not, you're cd drive might just need cleaned.

if none work, keep troubleshooting


Next step would be to try the CD from a boot disk... this will ensure that the CD drive is not being used by a 3rd party program and will also eliminate bad drivers as a source of the problem...

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Download and run this file to make a winME startup disk
http://www.putergeek.com/downloads/winme_startup_disk.exe

you should be able to boot from this disk and select startup w/ CDRom support (or something similar)

The process should tell you what drive your CD is on (probably d: or e:)

pop a CD in, switch to the drive (by typing "d:", where d is the drive letter of your CDROM)

then type "dir" and see if the contents of the CD is listed on the screen...

If the CD is not readable you will probably recieve an error telling you that the drive is not readable and it will ask you to "(a)bort, (r)etry, or (f)ail"... type "a" to abort...


if the cd is not readable, try cleaning it... if that doesnt help then it's probably time for a new drive...

if the CD was readable, then your CD drive is fine, but something in windows is wrong.. keep trouble shooting


If at this point you've completed the 1st 2 tasks and CD's are not working in windows, a program might be running that is keeping you from using the program... or the CDROm drivers might have gone bunk...

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run a program called msconfig (hit Start->run and type "msconfig").. goto the startup tab and see if it looks like any programs are starting that might interfear with your CD drive...   if there are a few you suspect, uncheck the box next to them and reboot, they should no longer load when you start your computer... (If inadvertantly uncheck an item, you can always go back and put the check back in.)

also, close any programs that you have and know use the CD ROM drive... then try accessing the CD Drive like normal to see if the problems have cleared up...


If that does not help, then the CD drivers are the next place to look, unfortunately since the CD drivers are pretty much built into windows, you don't have alot of options...

you might want to try going to device manager (control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager button) and find your cd drive (under dvd/cd-ROM drives) hilight it and hit delete... when you reboot, the drive should be redetected and reinstalled...


then try to cacess the cd drive as normal... if this fails... im out of ideas... find a new free tech support... heh...