Been having a few problems with cd/dvd burning and seem to have a software conflict.

It happened again today so though i@d uninstall what looked like the offending one.

reboot

No drives listed :eek: all three were not found!

ok - no problem,it must be the uninstall.

got the files back from recycle bin.....no

system restore....no

ok,time to reinstall from cd....Oh shot ....no cd drive

use external cd drive....not recognised!

in the end I had to convert the external cd drive to take a HDD ,copy theuninstalled software onto the external drive , then reinstall it from there

:confused:

and finally get everything back again

My question is:

system restore did not work this time,is there an alternative that will work,or was I just unlucky this time?I have successfully used it the past

oh well...thats half a day wasted :(

I can offer no help at all apart from telling you to chuck the whole thing out of an upstairs window.

I can offer no help at all apart from telling you to chuck the whole thing out of an upstairs window.

it came very close to that

system restore did not work this time,is there an alternative that will work,or was I just unlucky this time?

Generally if the restore is of a good config, and there are no underlying problems with the machine, it works.

Unfortunately, if you have a good config and there's nothing up with the machine, you generally won't need to use system restore!

Rob.

When you say no drives are visible, do you mean just from your burning software or from the OS i.e. no cd drives visible in windows explorer?

BTW, XP home or pro? with SP0, 1 or 2?

If the drives have completely gone and aren't even visible in windows explorer, it's worth checking in control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager. Look under CD/DVD drives.

If they're listed in the device manager but don't appear in the OS as usable drives, it could be some dodgy ASPI drivers which could need reinstalling.

If they're not even listed in the device manager, worth checking the drives are picked up by the PC when you boot up. I doubt that's the problem though

When you say no drives are visible' date=' do you mean just from your burning software or from the OS i.e. no cd drives visible in windows explorer?

BTW, XP home or pro? with SP0, 1 or 2?

If the drives have completely gone and aren't even visible in windows explorer, it's worth checking in control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager. Look under CD/DVD drives.

If they're listed in the device manager but don't appear in the OS as usable drives, it could be some dodgy ASPI drivers which could need reinstalling.

If they're not even listed in the device manager, worth checking the drives are picked up by the PC when you boot up. I doubt that's the problem though[/quote']

The drives were not visible in Explorer , In device manager it showed the drives and said the drivers were loaded correctly but the devices could not be found and therefore could not be accessed.

I tried installing new hardware and still could not be found.

I swappedone cd drive for a spare and no change

I assume that when instand cd was uninstalled it removed some form of drive controller .trouble was that was fairly sure the prob could be sorted out by a reinstall but without a cd drive it was not an easy job

OS is xp pro sp2

marc

How did you convert an external CD drive to take a HDD?????????????

You havent updated your bios lately have you?

Your problem was at the bottom of your post

SP2

this is a killer and most big corporates will not go near it. It kils more than it cures.

John

You havent updated your bios lately have you?

nononono

I looked at doing that a few years ago and decided it was something best avoided

Your problem was at the bottom of your post

SP2

this is a killer and most big corporates will not go near it. It kils more than it cures.

John

hmmmm

I put sp2 on when it first came out and have had no trouble since then - it all started when the instant cd crashed and obviously much of it was self-inflicted...I must stop uninstalling things

How did you convert an external CD drive to take a HDD?????????????

I got a external enclosure off Ebay,it can take either a cd drive or a HDD so you can just put which unit you want into it.It worked out a loy cheaper than getting a bigger HDD for the laptop and is very useful for tranferring data between pc's