[BobFIU]

Well, this gets more and more interesting...

My brother bought a new IDE cable, installed it and...NOTHING was fixed. Sigh.

The drive still will play music CD's and movie DVD's but nothing as far as data goes.

I'm about ready to cry uncle!

[coastie65]

Hi Bob, That thing is a real puzzle alright. I'm wondering how the data disk is formatted although you should get a message if it is not the right format. If that disk was in the other drive when it went south, it could have been something that trashed the disk as well. I think you have pretty much ruled out hardware, and the drivers are standard IDE stuff and you have no flags in device manager. That only leaves the possiblity of a bad disk. If you have any game software, i would see if it loads that, as that stuff is usually a mixture of stuff. If will load that and it plays the music and other stuff, I would assume it was the disk itself. coastie

[BobFIU]

Coastie...good point, however the CD's he's having particular trouble with are both commerically produced CD's, including one that came with the new drive. Additionally, they both also work just fine on other computers.

[AuroraDizon]

Have you looked to see if the software is available via download? I know its not much help but if I lose or my cd drive doesn't want to install World of Warcraft since they have the cd keys verified I can download from Blizzard's site the base game and all the expansions I have purchased.

[BobFIU]

Downloading the software won't fix the problem, and when you have a library of CD's, thats just not a solution.

Thanks, however.

[coastie65]

Hey Bob, I think i may know what the deal is, but I need to find my notes as it is dealing with the registry. If there some filters listed they need to be deleted, but I will need my notes in order to tell you how to do it, if they are there. coastie

[BobFIU]

Thanks, Coastie! I look forward to seeing what you find. I've had a sneaky suspicion for sometime that this is a software, not hardware problem.

[mphenterprises]

Hi BobFIU. Okay, while we await the recommendation from Coastie, there is another option. Before I go into it, I must stress that this option is not for the faint of heart and should really only be done as a next to last resort.

Your brother may have to flash the BIOS to an updated version. The first thing he would need to do is get into the BIOS and determine what version the computer has now. To do that, he would restart the computer and, when it started to boot up, hit either Delete, F1, F2, or F10 to access the BIOS. (There will be a prompt during startup.)

If the version is earlier than A12, he can go to the Dell Flash BIOS Update Page and download the latest version.

Let's leave this in the back pocket until if and when we need it.

[Tech4me]

Ok, Let's go back to the beginning.........: (before you tick into registry thing.....) Like MPH said...".For last solution"

Try to get the "Auto run" back..(Down load and run this) .Autoplay Repair Wizard ......: www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C680A7B6-E8FA-45C4-A171-1B389CFACDAD&displaylang=en

If He uses WMP try to get all the codecs back .....: [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=06fcaab7-dcc9-466b-b0c4-04db144bb601&displaylang=en]

[BobFIU]

MPH and Tech, thanks for the tips and suggestions. I'll pass them on.

Why do I get the feeing that when this is figured out, we'll slap ourselves over how obvious the solution was?

[coastie65]

Hi Bob, Sorry about taking so long but it got late and at my age, I need my beauties. This is a last ditch option and also not for the faint of heart. I have been through it on here, but my laser was busted and it didn't work.
Start Computer in safe mode. Click Start > Run > Type in regedit. Click HKeyLocalMachine > System > Current Control > Control Class > { 4D36E965 - E325 - 11CE - BFC1 - 08002BE103183} Delete upper and lower filters DO NOT DELETE UPPER OR LOWER FILTERS.bak FILES. once done close the registry editor and go to desk top. Open the Device manager and uninstall the drivers for the Optical drive. Go to desktop and restart ( this will reinstall the drivers as well as remove the filters). coastie

[BobFIU]

Thanks, Coastie. I'm passing this on to my brother as I write this...

[coastie65]

Hi Bob, As I said, this is a last ditch thing. Poking around in the registry is not for the faint of heart, nor the inexperienced, if they don't feel comfortable doing it. When you put in a new Optical drive and reload the drivers, sometimes it will include the filters, which in some cases will have to be removed in order for the drive to work right. As I also said, you do not remove any upper filters.bak or lower filters.bak files. Also, you should set a restore point before doing this, just in case. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Bob, as a final note before your brother tries all this, I would suggest he try the three suggestions in this order:

- Tech4Me's suggestion
- Coastie's suggestion
- my suggestion




My reasoning for this is that Tech4Me's suggestion is far less risky than either my or Coastie's suggestion. In the event that Tech4Me's suggestion fails, Coastie's suggestion should be next. Accessing and editing the registry is a very risky practice and should not be taken lightly. Definitely make sure that he creates a System Restore point as well as back up the registy. If Coastie's suggestion fails, my suggestion should be last. Flashing the BIOS is something that will leave a computer crippled if not done correctly. Have your brother follow the steps on the Dell Flash BIOS site to the letter, no variations.

If all of those options fail, you may want to talk to him about a reinstallation of Windows. This issue is one of those rare instances where we would recommend a reinstall "if all else fails."

[coastie65]

Yeah, Flashing the BioS can be a bit of an adventure as I have found out. I sat here one day with nothing better to do, so decided to try different BioS's. rgreen said he was cringing when he read my post on the adventure. When i decided I'd had enough, I went back to the BioS that was supposed to be in here and it wouldn't boot. Nearly had Heart Attack. Went into BioS and discovered that "Boot from Hdd" had been disabled. Reenabled it and all was fine. Haven't played with the BioS since. :D coastie

[BobFIU]

MPH, he was already well into the registry editing when you suggested making that step 2, but it went off without a hitch. Oddly enough, his registry did not have a "upper limit" but did have a "lower". He deleted the lower, removed the device in device manager and rebooted. All went well except that it did not fix the problem.
He's working on Tech's sugestion now.

BTW, he did also switch the IDE ports and obvously that didn't work either. I guess the IDE ports are OK.

If this doesn't work, I'm going to ship him a 5 gallon bucket of saltwater, with instructions to toss the computer in it. While it's on. ?:|

[coastie65]

The Salt Water solution sounds a bit extreme. :D As far as the upper / lower filters go, you will not always get both. Sometimes it will be one or the other. If the other suggestions don't work, I would say that it is time to return the Drive as defective, as you will have run through just about everything possible. coastie

[BobFIU]

Thanks, Coastie.
If he wasn't 1700 miles from me, the thing would already be in the salt water tomb! :8}

He's trying Techs solution now.

[coastie65]

:^0 Yeah, I know all about giving something the old deep six treatment. :^0

[BobFIU]

Whew...

He ran the download that Tech suggested and got an error message that seems to indicate that the drive may indeed by bad. Something about not being able to find the device. Go figure.

He's going to return the drive tomorrow and get a new one. HOPEFULLY that will cure the problem.



And...

I want to REALLY thank everyone who went way out of their way to help with this problem. It is refreshing to see so many people chime in to help someone fix a technical issue such as this.

My only hope is that I get to reciprocate in some way in the future.

Bob