XP won't see my Plextor

[FiberOptik]

I took a screenshot of the problem described below, find it here.

Anyone else have this issue? My plextor drive was working great last week and now I get this. I can boot from my CD drive just fine but windows refuses to recognize it. I didn't know if anyone else had this issue, I'm running an nForce2 chipset. My CD drive and HDD are using the local nforce2 ide connections. The CD drive is my secondary master, the HDD is primary master (duh). Any ideas on how I can resolve this?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

your server isnt working to see the screenshot.

if its working on your end that means your isp blocks port 80. change your web server port to something like 81 and add it on the end of the link. http://65.28.107.81:81/

JBLaze

 

[KF]

Since you mention nForce, it seems to me a lot of people had disappearing CD drives with some versions of the nForce IDE drivers, so Nvidia disabled automatic install for the IDE drivers on later driver packs. IAC the solution was to go into Device Manager and direct it to install the standard window IDE controller driver. If you already have the standard drivers, then delete the controller, reboot, and let XP redetect and install it.


http://65.28.107.81:27020/
didn't get me anything.

 

[CTho9305]

I've had drives disappear after resuming from hibernate - but they show up in device manager with a driver problem. Removing and then redecting it usually fixes it.

 

[FiberOptik]

Interesting that you mention nvidia IDE drivers because I just installed their new IDE drivers yesterday. The problem is that I was experiencing this problem before I installed the latest nforce2 drivers. I figured installing the new drivers on their website would cure the problem. Anyways, I have uninstalled my nforce2 drivers completely. XP still won't see my plextor drive and displays a little yellow exclamation point next to it in the device manager. Under the Device Status section it reads this: "Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)"

Anyone know where I can go in the registry and delete the bad info so windows can rebuild it? Or am I just way off. Sorry about the above link not working, I think it might be fixed now. RR is either blocking any port I open or I have my server misconfigured. DOH!

 

[FiberOptik]

I messed around with my drivers more last night. I uninstalled the nvidia driver set and let windows use the default WHQL drivers for my nforce2 chipset. I then manually removed the IDE controller and the CD drive. I still had the same problem as before, windows reported that all the drivers were loaded but that it could not find the device. I then re-installed the latest nforce2 driver set from nvidia's website. This time windows lists my drive as working properly in device manager but I don't have any drive letters for it! I can see the CD in my device manager but no other programs on my computer (Nero, Explorer, etc.) can see the drive. Has anyone else had this problem and know of a solution?

 

[CTho9305]

Have you tried removing the drive in device manager and then redetecting it?

 

[FiberOptik]

Yep, tried that, just for the hell of it I removed the drive and the IDE controller after I uninstalled the nForce2 drivers. I let windows redetect both the CD drive and my IDE controller using the non-nvidia drivers that come with XP. Still didn't work. :frown:

 

[KF]

> after I uninstalled the nForce2 drivers

I think what CTho9305 had in mind is to delete the CD in Device Manager one more time. Do NOT uninstall the drivers, now that XP has untangled its registry confusion.

When I saw "Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)" my heart stopped. I have a computer with an installation of XP that gets that error, and the best I can do is cycle through different types of errors. The registry is screwed up, and there is no way to fix it (in my case.) I have a pretty good idea how it happen in my case: I temporarily put in a second drive, and XP shuffled all the drive letters.

 

[FiberOptik]

Yeah, tried that too, I have uninstalled the CD drive with and without the nvidia IDE drivers installed. In either case when I uninstall the drive and reboot windows detects it upon startup. However, once it detects the drive it doesn't assign it a drive letter. Right now I'm using the new IDE drivers from nvidia and the drive is seen in device manager just fine, I am no longer getting the error that you can view from the link above. I just can't access the drive because it doesn't have a drive letter. There has got to be a place in the registry where I can delete a key and windows will recreate it with the correct or updated values.

On a side note something that I noticed was that certain programs (alcohol 120% and cloneCD) were seeing my CD on channel 0 drive 0. Then they would also see the drive on channel 1 drive 0. I haven't switched cables or anything on the drive so I'm confused as to why this is happening now. I have the drive installed on my secondary IDE channel, the drive is set as the master, its currently the only device on that channel.

Is there some sort of registry repair tool that I can download? I know they used to have that stuff for win95/98, does it exist for XP?

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Go into Disk Management (Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management), and see if your CD-ROM is mapped to a drive letter.

 

[KF]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
Go into Disk Management (Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management), and see if your CD-ROM is mapped to a drive letter.

 

[KF]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
Go into Disk Management (Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management), and see if your CD-ROM is mapped to a drive letter.

I wonder what it will say for drives without a letter?


In the registry,
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

has a list of driver letters. I don't know how you add a drive letter though. If a letter is listed for what seems like a CD, you could delete it, and maybe that would get XP to fix the letter the next time it boots.

 

[FiberOptik]

The CD drive does not have a letter mapped to it when I go into Disk Management. In fact the drive is not even displayed. Its as though the rest of my computer can't see the drive, only device manager reports the drive as functioning. Nothing else seems to be able to talk to it.

 

[FiberOptik]

Would it be safe to delete all items in the MountedDevices folder in the registry and reboot? I tried deleting just the mounted drive letters that my CD drive used to occupy and I rebooted. Still not working... :frown:

 

[KF]

Originally posted by: FiberOptik
Would it be safe to delete all items in the MountedDevices folder in the registry and reboot? I tried deleting just the mounted drive letters that my CD drive used to occupy and I rebooted. Still not working... :frown:

I was too busy yesterday to go on line.

I took a look at my registry (actually registries) and noticed a lot of what appeared to be junk. One installation had 60 entries like
\??\Volume{aca1f00-...

So I delete them all. Next boot, the registry had a reasonable number, equal to the number of entries for drives in My Computers. That is: 1 floppy, several partitions, and 2 CDs.

Next there were 5 drive letters that do not appear in My Computer. So I deleted them. Next boot everything seemed normal, so that caused no problem. I didn't have the guts to delete C:, but I suspect XP would fix it if I did. I may try it later, for fun. (This would be on an installation I don't use much!)

Therefore, I think it is safe to delete all the \??\Volume{... type entries and all drive letters except your floppy (A and HD (C: plus any for additional partitions you may have). I think it is worth at try.

With that, I have come to the end of my knowledge about this topic. If that doesn't fix your problem, I will add yet another item to the list of why I have a low opinion of XP. I really can't see any reason why XP is having this difficulty to begin with. It is something that should be automatic, and it is up to the OS to take care of, since there is no way for the user or Administration to do anything about it.