Hi Mulligrubs,
Thanks for the emails it is great to be able to have access to all that information.
I am not able to get to the meetings but I am very interested in the subjects that get discussed.
May I ask a question and may be get a bit of help please.
Something has happened to my E:drive - CD Drive.
It won't come up in my list of drives and I have tried to enable it but that doesn't work.
Could you suggest how I could repair the problem?
Thanks, Wendy
Thanks for the question Wendy and glad you like the notes
It sounds to me that the drive is no showing up in windows
Either it is dead or it isn't physically connected any more
CD Drives are usually pretty tough (HDDs are more susceptible) so I would presume it's more like a cable has come loose
Let's try so investigations
Does the light on the drive light up when you open or close it?
If you put a disk in the drive can you hear it spin?
Most PC's when they boot show a list of items that BIOS identifies
There is usually a ram check (that 'counts' the ram) and a list of connected drives be they hard drives or CD/DVD drives
Note some manufacturers hide this activity behind a 'splash screen' which you can usually turn off in the BIOS settings
When your PC boots can you see the drive in the list of drives?
If it is lighting up but not showing in Windows I bet the ribbon cable is loose
If it isn't lighting or spinning up then maybe the power cable is loose
Worst case is all cables are connected and the drive is dead
New replacement CD drives are cheap these days, even DVD burners are well under $100
I know I have a few CD burners lying around somewhere
As I mentioned though CD drives aren't usually the first thing to go
So if your CD drive has died I would be doing a very thorough review of my PC to make sure nothing else has been effected too
Now would be an excellent time to back up all your important data and with the recent black-outs and brown-outs around town we should all take some extra care to keep our information safe
Wendy do a bit of a check up on what the drive does and doesn't do
If you are game you can even take the side off the PC case and see if the cables are all secure
(Unplug the power first and be careful of static electricity)
We might even have someone who can come and help if you need it
If anyone has any other suggestions for Wendy or would like to volunteer to help then please write in
Cheers
MATT
Comments for this post
