Laptop not recognising cd drive

[Turnip]

Hi all
I'm trying to get an old Time Cybernote 953E laptop working. My biggest problem seems to be the CD drive. It does not appear in my computer or in the hardware manager and when I enter the bios at startup it is not one of the devices listed. It does however have power and spins up cds when one is put in.
If it makes any difference it is a cd drive that clicks out and can be replaced with a battery.

This all means I can't (or daren't) format to reinstall windows because I can't access the windows cd

If anyone has any clues to what the problem may be or any solutions I'd be very grateful

Phil

[jbennet]

sounds like either a broken drive or a bad conenction if even the BIOS cannot access it.

Most laptop drives are removable (click a switch or something) - try taking it in and out

[Turnip]

Cheers jbennet

Tied taking it in and out... lots!

I've tried swaping in another cd drive that I know works from another laptop but still no joy.
Do you know exactly what I should expect to see in the BIOS? Should I see IDE controllers or CD drive? Sorry if it's a stupid question but I'm not that familiar with looking at the BIOS.

If it is a loose coonection is it likely that I'll be able to get access to it to check? I know laptops tend to be sewn up pretty tight

Cheers
Phil

[jbennet]

is it still in warranty?

if it was just windows not finfding it then id say it was a driver problem but if the BIOS cannot see it then its hardware

A good idea to see if the BIOS can see it is to try and boot from a bootable cd (xp instalation maybe, just dont actually install it)

[Turnip]

It won't boot from my windows CD, I have selected CD as the boot drive, so presumably that points to hardware.

Its way out of warranty - about 5 years old I think. It is my girlfriend's but it hasn't worked for years. I swapped a hard disk into it from an old laptop of mine with a broken case and it works, but this particular laptop needs a partition to write to when it hibernates so I need to format and reinstall windows.

Maybe it's not worth the effort :(

Cheers for the input though. If I can work out how to get into it I'll see if I can check the connections.

With it being a laptop will there be a cable connecting it to the motherboard or will it likely just connect directly to the board?

[jbennet]

yeah do you swap the drives reguarly?

i know that PC Card slots in laptops wear out if tyou swap to often so i suppose the same thuing could potentially happen if you alternate betwen cd drive and batetruy ona regular basis

Most likely its a nonstandard connection by the way. The hard drives are fairly regular (kind of a mini ide) but i think cd/dvd drives have a custom interface to accomadate for batteries etc...

Will a USB or PCMIA cd drive work? (depends on laptop)

[Turnip]

Cheers for the reply again Jbennet
The connection was slightly fiddly. There's an adaptor on the 'tray' that the cd drive sits in that then connects the drive to a connection in the laptop. I can't see if there is a lead from there to the motherboard or if the connector is mounted directly onto the motherboard. Perhaps it's the adaptor that is faulty, I started trying to buzz through the connections but my multimeter is a bit clumsy for the job really.

I had thought about a USB cd rom. Will the BIOS be able to boot from it for installing Windows?

Cheers again
Phil

[jbennet]

depends

some pcs can and some cant check in the BIOS where you can choose the boot order, you should see things like:

CD
HDD
Floppy
Network

If theres one for Removable Device or USB CD then you are in luck

[Turnip]

Afraid not
There's just disk, hard disk and cd.

Would updating the bios help? If so does anyone know how I can find out my motherboard or if i have a flashable bios.

Otherwise I've had a quick google and a boot disk with USB drivers seems another option. Could anyone tell me how I can make one (I have a feeling windows 2000 won't make boot disks, although I have an xp home desktop and xp pro at work) or where i can download one and/or how I'd use it.

Phil

[jbennet]

you mean a boot floppy?

[Turnip]

you mean a boot floppy?

Yes, is that plausible? A boot floppy that installs usb drivers to install windows from a usb flash drive or usb cd drive.

I found this page http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm and tried method 3 but just got error messages when I ran it.

[jbennet]

i know that you can make boot floppies (or "slipstream" your windows cd) to include certain RAID, SCSI or SATA drivers so i assume this would be possible