More Help :'(

Sailor Saturn · #1 (**permalink**) 02-16-2002, 03:10 PM

I just finished duplicating my mom's hard drive onto my 40 gig hard drive(since my 8 gig has something wrong with it and can't be duplicated). The computer boots up fine, but I can't install my vid card(or anything) else because it only detects the C drive(hard drive) and A drive(floppy drive) but doesn't detect my CD-RW and DVD-Rom drives. When booting up, at the very beginning when it is detecting drives, it detects both of the optical drives, though. And until I get the vid card installed, my computer is stuck in the 648x480 res and 16 color graphics.

Any help you can give would be very welcome.

Tamerlane · #2 (**permalink**) 02-16-2002, 10:25 PM

First of all, have to admit that knowledge of computers is very limited at the moment, but that's only a temporary thing.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sailor Saturn
The computer boots up fine, but I can't install my vid card(or anything) else because it only detects the C drive(hard drive) and A drive(floppy drive) but doesn't detect my CD-RW and DVD-Rom drives.

Have you tried detect hardware in your control panel, methinks you have. But's it's worth another shot anyway.

Sailor Saturn · #3 (**permalink**) 02-16-2002, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tamerlane
Have you tried detect hardware in your control panel, methinks you have. But's it's worth another shot anyway.

*blinkblink* Actually, I haven't, probably because it went through a whole bunch of automatically detecting hardware when I first booted up the computer after getting it 'fixed.' I'll give that a try...er...tomorrow.

Tamerlane · #4 (**permalink**) 02-16-2002, 10:52 PM

I think that was actually it

HighLordDave · #5 (**permalink**) 02-17-2002, 12:57 PM

Try booting to your Windows98 startup disk and reinstalling Windows. The boot disk will load your CD-ROM drivers to the hard drive. After they load, install the display drivers from the video card CD.

Xandax · #6 (**permalink**) 02-18-2002, 12:02 AM

Do the drives get detected by the BIOS?

If so you will see under the starting of your computer something like:
Primary Master: <something> (hopefully your harddrive)
Primary Slave: <something>
Secondary Master: <something>
Secondary Slave: <something>

if you have 3 drives (harddrive + DVD+CDR) you should have 2 masters and a slave.

Sailor Saturn · #7 (**permalink**) 02-18-2002, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xandax
Do the drives get detected by the BIOS?

If so you will see under the starting of your computer something like:
Primary Master: <something> (hopefully your harddrive)
Primary Slave: <something>
Secondary Master: <something>
Secondary Slave: <something>

if you have 3 drives (harddrive + DVD+CDR) you should have 2 masters and a slave.

Yeah, they do.

HighLordDave · #8 (**permalink**) 02-18-2002, 08:50 AM

If your optical drives show up in the BIOS but not in Windows, then you either have corrupt drivers or some other Windows problem. If you have CD-ROM drivers on floppy disk, try installing them from the disk, otherwise re-install Windows.

Sailor Saturn · #9 (**permalink**) 02-18-2002, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HighLordDave
If your optical drives show up in the BIOS but not in Windows, then you either have corrupt drivers or some other Windows problem. If you have CD-ROM drivers on floppy disk, try installing them from the disk, otherwise re-install Windows.

Using my mom's CD-ROM, via our home network, I installed/upgraded to Win98SE and that fixed the problem. Thanks for the help!