Ok, Need help!

[djdan]

I turn my comp on today and i thought i would go to play AOE3 since its been a while, starting to rust up.
Then the computer wasnt recognising the disk, so i thought fair enough needs a clean, seems its not that, my computer isn't recognising my disk drives at all, when i go to my computer nothings there apart from C: Drive.
I then thought fair enough might have accidentally disabled them, nope they were enabled, so tried reinstalling them, still no joy, has anyone else got any ideas? When I go into the Device Manager in Systems where the little icon is its got the CD-Drive icon with a little exclamation mark in a yellow circle over the top so I'm guessng somethings wrong here, I just dunno what!

If i cant fix them it seems ill have to give up on AOE3, and we cant have that, i'm stillhaving funn annoying people lol heh. Seriously though, any help in this area will be greatly appreciated!

[StrokeyBlofeld]

Here's an idea Dan...... don't touch anything that requires an electrical charge, that way you won't break anything else!

I have to say, this is a problem I have had many times before, and for the life of me I can't think what I did to correct it???!!!

How many drives do you have linked up? Do you have an external drive you could try? (usb).

Do you another pc you could pinch a drive from to see if it's the drive that's not working?

Hmm, I know it's not really a big problem, I'm gonna kick myself when I remember what I did to fix it.........

[djdan]

That is a good idea, I just can't refrain myself from touching and interfering

Ermm well theres 2 CD Drives, they were and always have been built in, never bought any external ones, being a cheapskate, which leads onto the next answer no, we only have 1 PC in the house, parents have their own laptop so they got no need for more the one Desktop, cheapskates, we all are lol heh heh.
When going through the troubleshoot it said try updating the driver, but it wouldn't :-/

[Soccerman771]

Sounds like a good excuse to buy another computer.

Can you do a disk clean or disk de-frag?

Can you save files to any drive that doesn't 'appear'?

Have you tried starting in safe mode and then re-booting?

[djdan]

Theese solutions only affect the C: Drive/Hard Drive, this problem is that my computer doesnt recognise my CD Drives (E and J Drive for me).

[Soccerman771]

OK, maybe your drives became disconnected somehow? May want to take the case off and look for loose wires. Discharge any static electricity before you do that.

[djdan]

Was just doing that as you typed, all connections seemedto be plugged in, its really baffling me, i think a new computer is in order, when i can next afford it of course, i suppose i dont need my CD Drive :-/ i think 5/6 years has been a good run :-/ especially with the treatment i've shown it, hmmmm. If I get time another day, I'll get everything out clean it and put it back in and see if it works, but not holding my breath :-/
Thanks for your input anyway guys.

[StrokeyBlofeld]

Do you know how to check if they are recognised in the BIOS? Or perhaps you can see them when the computer POSTS's?

[Comadevil]

Proably it is broken. New DVD Rom Drive around 15-20 € . New DVD Burner 30-40 €.
SO new computer isn't needed

[MNBob]

If they show up in Device Manager with the exclamation icon that means there is some problem. See if you can uninstall the drives from Device Manager, re-boot and then see if windows re-recognizes the attached drives.

[36drew]

C:/Reformat.

If you have the time/skills, then that is what I would do.

[djdan]

[quote=""36drew""]If you have the time/skills, then that is what I would do.[/quote]

If I had the skills, hoho Drew is quite the comedian lol

[quote=""Strokeyblofeld""]Do you know how to check if they are recognised in the BIOS? Or perhaps you can see them when the computer POSTS's?[/quote]

This just lost me :-S ?!?!

Yeah I guessed I would have to get new CD Drives the only problem is i dont know how to connect them up? are they easy? Do they come with instructions? Lol. As you can see I'm really not the brightest bulb in the box ops:

Cheers Bob, will give that a try before giving in and buying new ones! The weird thing was that they decided to give up at the same time

[RascalJones]

If they both gave up at the same time, perhaps the connection cable is having a problem. Both drives are probably connected to the same flat cable (Unless, of course, they're SATA, but I'm guessin they're not because they both kicked the bucket at the same time). Just note where it's connected to the motherboard, and install a new cable. they're not that hard to install (and not very expensive either).

But, before doing that, follow Bob's advice.

[Comadevil]

[quote=""djdan""]
Yeah I guessed I would have to get new CD Drives the only problem is i dont know how to connect them up? are they easy? Do they come with instructions? Lol. As you can see I'm really not the brightest bulb in the box ops:
[/quote]

U have too which got broken at the same time? Or am i missing here something?

Installing a new DVD drive is like playing with Lego, just connect power cable and data cable, maybe changing a jumper position.

SATA drive won't be a issue here, since dans PC seems to be quite old. With sata it would be even much easier

[djdan]

Yeah both kicked the bucket at the same time, tried Bob's way, didn't seem to work :-/
The flat cable, is it grey?it starts from the top one goes via second one, which then goes onto the big green board, im guessing is the motherboard? I cant see how to disconnect the cable though :-/