CRAIGFIN

I have just suddenly lost both my drivers for my CD-ROM and CD-Rewriter. I have all drivers needed, including the floppy for the CD-ROM, but the computer will not install any drivers at all.
It keeps asking about a MSCDEX.EXE file that is missing and the troubleshooter keeps bringing up a Code 39 problem. Can anyone please shed any light on my problem.

Cheers,

Craig.

DazV

Whats your Operating System ? Win9x, WinME, DOS ?

CRAIGFIN

I have recently installed Win XP.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Did you upgrade from a previous where you had legacy (dos) drivers loading in the config/autoexec?
Even if you did, XP should have completely ignored/deleted these calls. XP Pro does not contain mscdex natively, mscdexnt is the closest thing afaik.

Easiest thing to do first is to get into device manager.
Expand IDE/atapi controllers. double click on the primary channel first then open advanced settings.
Make sure that device type is set to auto detection on both device 0 and 1. Do the same for the Secondary channel and then reboot. Also, set the transfer mode to DMA if applicable on the devices on both channels.
This is stage one.
See if that helps....

Cheers,

Nick

suba

click on start/control panel/add hardware and let it search for your cdrom/cdrw.

did you do an upgrade from a previous OS to XP? or was it a fresh install?

ChrisS/P1

Seems a bit strange that it's 'suddenly' stopped working. What did you do immediately before it stopped working?

I've checked the whole of my C drive (XP Home Edition), and MSCDEX.EXE does not exist.

It's normally only used on DOS boot disks to load the CDROM drivers.

I'd check your AUTOEXEC file.

Attu

Have a look in BIOS and make sure thay are still there, you dont need to install drivers for CD Rom drives only to make them work in DOS and as win XP uses NTFS not DOS it wont use it at all)i dont think )
Also check to make sure the IDE cable hasnt come loose inside the puter.

CRAIGFIN

I've tried everthing most of you have suggested but to no avail. Does anyone know if the jumper clip at the back would affect anything (Should it be the master, slave or CSEL). Any more suggestions would be greatly received.

Cheers,

Craig.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

If you are running both the cdrom and writer on a single IDE cable, then ideally, the writer should be jumpered to Master at the end of the cable and the cdrom jumpered to slave on the middle connector.

Cheers,

Nick

CRAIGFIN

I have also tried to reinstall the CD-ROM driver on the floppy. Most of it goes okay until the last step when it asks if you want to modify your files. If I select yes it comes up with an error, if I select no it has an "installation aborted" error.
Any way around this problem.

Craig.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Do not put those drivers anywhere near the machine. You will do more harm than good installing dos drivers for the drive when XP wants nothing to do with them and doesn't need them them whatsoever. You haven't stated whether your BIOS actually properly detects the drives or not.

CRAIGFIN

Yep the BIOS is happy, and detects both drives no problem. The Re-Writer is Secondry Master and the CD-ROM Drive is Secondry Slave.

What next?????

Craig.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

So in the advanced properties under the secondary ide controller, nothing registers at all?
Under device manager too, nothing shows up under DVD/CD Drives?
If they do, then go into admin tools, comp management, the disk management. If they appear in there, then right click on the and change drive letter. If they have none, assign one.....


Cheers,

Nick

CRAIGFIN

I have just noticed something in the driver details under each CD-ROM drive. When you enter Driver Details, each CD-ROM has four driver files listed. Only three files has a big green tick beside them, the fourth doesn't. It is the same file for each drive and its called "bsstor.sys". The location in Windows XP Pro is C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\bsstor.sys. The error code says that a file is either lost or corrupted. The file is still there so could it be corrupted?
What could my next step be as I think it must be significant that it is the only one without a tick.
The CD-ROM drives are listed in Device Manager but not in the Admin Tools section.

P.S. The bsstor file is described as a B.H.A. Storage Helper Driver (WindowsNT5.x). I don't know if that will help.

Any ideas,

Craig.

[Edited by CRAIGFIN - 8/18/2002 10:54:32 AM]

Attu

Just had a look at mine (also win XP) and ive got 7 drivers per drive and 4 out of the 7 have green ticks.

Andy

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Afaik, the green tick icon stands for Microshaft Digital Signature Approved.

CRAIGFIN

Okay, thanks for the replies.

Back to square one then.

Craig.

MrLegacy

Yeah the mscdex.exe file is what you need its what tell the system what drives are connected..
MrLegacy

CRAIGFIN

Its looks like I shall have concede defeat with this as nothing I have tried works. I am now going to lose loads of photos that I was about to burn onto disc just before this happened. I am p***ed of it now. I'll just have format the hard drive an reinstall everything again.
I tried to install generic CD Rom drives from the internet but the computer will not accept them. I also tried to install the MSCDEX file from the net but to no avail. Any last ideas before I lose my photos?????????

Craig.

MarkO

What about uploading the photos somewhere and getting somebody else to burn them?

Or alternatively, installing another copy of XP (or another OS) onto the machine. Then you can burn the photos, and then clean/sort out the machine?

Seems a bit drastic to lose all the photos just 'cos you can't install a driver...

CRAIGFIN

MarkO.

I like the idea of installing XP again, but how can I do it if neither of my drives work?

Craig.

JackClark

Make sure the CD is a boot device in the bios then start the machine with the CD in the drive.

allzo

This is how I would do it..
If you can buy/borrow a cheap HDD big enough to copy all of the info you want to keep (say 2Gb). Connect this as a slave to your machine and copy all the files you want to keep onto this. XP will automatically recognise the drive
If I am doing a rebuild on a system that it is ESSENTIAL that all data is kept, I get a drive of similar capacity to the data and use DriveImage (5.0 supports XP) to make a copy. Once this is done you can wipe the original drive and do a fresh install.
You then slave the 2nd drive and copy all needed files, emails, documents, favourites etc etc...
Sounds a bit laborious but is pretty bulletproof. It also gives you a completely seperate backup of all your original files if you remove the second drive and store it somewhere
Hard drives are now ridiculously cheap but it depends how much your data means to you
Hope this helps

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

XP files and settings transfer wizard is good for this if you want to keep important data and ship off to another storage device prior to install.

If, like you say, the bios detects both cd drives, then as already mentioned, set cd to boot first. Your cd drives and 99.9% likely to be absolutely fine.


Cheers,

Nick

JackClark

Just fixed mine with an install of Easy CD Creator. Theres an article on the Microsoft Knowledge base that talks about the problem.