Re-installing XP - CD Drive not working

rcs

I have a laptop but the DVD drive has stopped recognising CD's. It will recognise DVD's fine but if you put in a CD the drive just seeks for about 30seconds & then nothing happens! I've tried a lens cleaner to no avail

Anyway I need to reformat my HD & re-install XP but the problem is the laptop won't recognise my Windows XP CD...

Anyone any ideas on how I can do this (or if it's possible - no floppy drive by the way!) Is it possible to maybe write the windows XP setup files to a blank DVD & try booting from that ?

Random

Try copying the original disc that you have?

Standard Toaster

Did you try to boot the machine with the XP cd? (Not reading cd maybe a windows issue?)

MunsterCycling

Can you boot from USB? If not then you might try nLite and create an ISO file then burn that to DVD instead of CD, might not work though


MC

rcs

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Can you boot from USB? If not then you might try nLite and create an ISO file then burn that to DVD instead of CD, might not work though


MC

Yeah, might try booting from USB but I don't think i can to be honest. I presume I can't copy the XP CD's contents to a USB stick & then to the \ partition.. I don't think you can boot from \ either though!

Biggins

Are you sure Microsoft DOS mscdex command is installed?
See here: http://www.computerhope.com/mscdex.htm

This is a basic requirment for cd'd to be readable, etc.
MSCDEX provides access to CD-ROM drives and is loaded in the autoexec.bat file. In the config.sys file you have to load the drivers that came with your CD drive.

Example:

in CONFIG.SYS: device=c:\devices\cdromdrv.sys /d:mscd000
in AUTOEXEC: c:\dos\mscdex /d:mscd000

the d: switch names must match or else it won't work.

Have a read here too: http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/cddriver-c.html

rcs

Biggins wrote: »

Are you sure Microsoft DOS mscdex command is installed?
See here: http://www.computerhope.com/mscdex.htm

This is a basic requirment for cd'd to be readable, etc.
MSCDEX provides access to CD-ROM drives and is loaded in the autoexec.bat file. In the config.sys file you have to load the drivers that came with your CD drive.

Example:

in CONFIG.SYS: device=c:\devices\cdromdrv.sys /d:mscd000
in AUTOEXEC: c:\dos\mscdex /d:mscd000

the d: switch names must match or else it won't work.

Cheers, I'll have a look at that when I get home. Im presuming it is installed because the CD drive used to work fine. I downloaded the latest drivers for my CD drive aswell but when I went to install them it said the drivers were already up to date.

Biggins

They (the drivers) might have worked fine at some stage but became faulty through a number of reasons.
If your doing an update of them, un-install the old drivers in safe mode, this is to ensure a fuller clear out of them (including the registry which the un-install routine will take care of).

The drive will always spin/open/close fine anyway as long as power is getting to the drive but if the drive heads, etc itself are faulty, reading an actual cd is another thing altogether.

thecheese

This happened with my Dell inspiron 1300, quite a common problem for this model apparently.

I think when I reinstalled windows, I copied my windows xp cd image to a different computer using imgburn and then burned the image onto a DVD.

Worked a treat

TerrorFirmer

If all else fails you can boot from USB if you use someone elses machine to create the bootable key.

rcs

Cheers for the replies lads... messed about with it last night, uninstalling drivers & everything else then decided to give the drive itself a clean & hey presto... it's working fine again (for now) :rolleyes:

Managed to get it re-installed & Laptop is flying again

MunsterCycling

Sweet!