CR-ROM Problems

[earth4x]

My uncle called me up this morning and told me he had a problem with his computer and that he needed to reinstall windows. Problem is, he says his CDROM drive doesn't work anymore and that's why he wanted to format.

He's running on a really OLD aptiva 2176-f31 (133mhz with 45mb of ram and a 2mb vid card) so I told him it's probably because the cd-rom was really old and dust finished it off. We go to the store, buy a new one, we go back to his place and I plug the cd-rom in his computer... the result : he doesn't detect it even if it's plugged correctly

Weird thing is, it detects the old broken hard-drive but it doesn't read cds.

I plugged the new drive on the secondary IDE and it didn't detect it, but when I put it on the primary IDE with the hard-drive, it does get detected but I doesn't read the cds!!!!

So basically, I can't reinstall windows95 because we can't run the cd-rom drive and I can't seem to figure out why !!!

the new cd-rom is a LG GCR 8525B (OEM) and the old one is a ACER 52x cdrom. Both plugs on the cd-rom are the same and I know his motherboard supports the standard IDE ports and cables that the newer cd-roms have but I can't figure out why it doesn't work!

any help would be greatly appreciated (don't tell me to buy a new pc, he knows he could but it's his son's pc so he doesn't wanna buy him a new one)

 

[BlueWeasel]

That's odd...it sounds like maybe a bad cable or the secondary IDE controller is going bad. I'd try this:

1) Use a different IDE cable for the CD-ROM connection
2) Put the hard drive on the secondary controller and see if it gets recognized by the system

 

[Emultra]

Just get a new computer, that's my advice. This is decade old stuff you have now.

 

[semo]

the new cd rom drive probably costs more than the pc itself. i have to deal with some old computers myself and in my experience if you fix that problem, another will promptly emerge. it's the law:
http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html

(fourth bullet point)
.
.
.
murphy was an optimist


if you can, get rid of the machine and get something newer. p3 or amd duron. cheap but will give you much less headaches