I had my computer crash some time ago and had to repartition it and reformat it.
Some how my cdrom got messed up.
It is showing as a fat system and will not read anything.
I really need it so we can make copys of picture cd's that we make.

I have tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it and nothing so far has worked.

I saw a program called partition magic 8 . I am wondering if that might help.
I downloaded a free trial and don't see how to get to the cdrom with it.


I do also have a cd-rw installed. I really need both of them inorder to not have to remake photo shows over to get enough to share them with family.

My husband is also looking into making and selling screensavers and it would be very helpful to be able to copy a cd.

I did find out I can burn a music cd using just the cd-rw drive.
Will have to check if I can copy photo cd's that way.
It still would be good to have my cdrom drive working again.

your looking in the wrong direction here M8, Partition Magic you defo do not need, it sounds like you just need to go into the device manager, unistall the drives and lets windows reinstall them for you. Did you load the motherboard drivers up wen you reinstalled your OS after the format ?

It is showing as a fat system and will not read anything.
I really need it so we can make copys of picture cd's that we make.



Can you post a screenshot of where is says that and/or details?

CD drives are Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) and do not have nor use a file system, let alone FAT.

When a CD contains data, then that is stored in ISO or UDF format, but that's a disc and not a drive.

Can you post a screenshot of where it says that and/or details?
I don't know how to do a screenshot.

When I go into My computer , right click on d and then on properties.

It says Type: CD-ROM Disc
File system: FAT
used space 0
free space 0

I am running 98se .

your looking in the wrong direction here M8, Partition Magic you defo do not need, it sounds like you just need to go into the device manager, unistall the drives and lets windows reinstall them for you. Did you load the motherboard drivers up wen you reinstalled your OS after the format ?


I don't have any motherboard drivers so no i did not.
I did just try uninstalling from device manager and then restarted it.
It did reinstall it but it is still showing file system: fat when I right click on d in my computer.

forget about the FAT issue for a second.... (the CD's may have been constructed using the FAT file system) FAT32 would be the norm for Win 98 anyway...

Your problem is that you have a CDRom that is not reading disc's?

You also have a CDRW installed, can this read the discs ?

You are running Win 98se and have not yet installed the motherboard drivers, what is the make and model of the motherboard?

Shuttle AK31 is what is says on the outside of my computer.

Have a look here M8

http://www.mainboard.cz/mb/shuttle/AK31.htm

and here

http://www.mainboard.cz/driver/

looks like yours have the VIA chipset, they do a 4:1 driver for the mobo etc install the drivers for the motherboard and then check your device manager to ensure there are no hardware issues, then post back.

VIA drivers for the KT266 chipset here (http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2)

I would agree that we shouldn't focus on the FAT system, I was just curious.

I also agree that more than likely motherboard drivers would be to blame, especially VIA who make the worst chipsets and write the worst drivers.

HOWEVER, I couldn't ignore the following comment, and it's not to be a smart arse, but I would really like the answer.


"(the CD's may have been constructed using the FAT file system) FAT32 would be the norm for Win 98 anyway"

How is that possible?

CD's don't use FAT either on 98 or any other operating system, they use an ISO or UDF format normally.

They have their own file system, independent of the operating system.

This is why you can use a CD made on 98 on XP and vice versa for example.

whoops, your rite Inso, thanks for the correction ref the CD File format, what i was trying to say badly, that the CD may have been created on a win 95 system which uses FAT (or FAT16). Im still unsure on how this is being seen on the PC, the user may be looking at a very small partition that has been assigned a drive letter rather than what he thinks is the CDRom drive ?

what do you think ?

The CDRom not bing seen, as I said I think as you, the first call should be the MoBo drivers

personally I think the SIS chipsets are the worst though :laugh:

That's a tough one, SIS are pretty lousy! :laugh:

Still, I didn't mean this to go a bit off topic, and again I think that you are on the right track as far as updating motherboard drivers, especially with VIA 4 in 1.

Whether that even fixes the above problem or not it should still be done, so they have nothing to lose.

I really can't offer an explanation as to why it's showing as a FAT drive, anything's possible with VIA. :)

Anyway, maxwells update your motherboard drivers, post back and good luck guys!

ok motherboard drivers updated and no change. :madhack:
It still says that d: is not ready to read when there is a disk in the drive. Still shows up as a fat system.

Yes my e drive is working fine. It is my cd-rw drive.

I really think it is a partition problem put have no clue of what to do.

I have no computer literate friends here to help me out.

I hesitate to take it to a shop as they would want more to fix it than it is worth. :rolleyes:

I may just have to limp along until we are able to replace this computer. :bawling:

you do not have a partition problem, only yoour hard drive is partitioned, this means you can split a big space in to smaller bits, (or partition it) so if you had a 100gig harddrive, you could split it into two partition 50 + 50 for instance, cdroms etc are not partitioned at all..

are you sure you aint created a small partition and are getting this mixed up with what is showing on the my computor and you think it is a CDRom drive.

right click the icon for the drive you think is the CDRom and put up on here the names of the tabs you can see at the top starting with

General

Edit..
also can you go into your device manager please and confirm that both drives are seen and the hardrive is seen

are you sure you aint created a small partition and are getting this mixed up with what is showing on the my computor and you think it is a CDRom drive.


That's what I was thinking.

Remember it was working okay until she formatted and reinstalled Windows.


CD's don't have partitions, nor do they use FAT, only hard drives do it's really that simple.

In my computer it is only showing a general tab for the d drive.

In device manger it is showing


as a sony cd-rom cdu5211 and has 3 tabs
general ,settings and driver

It says no drivers needed for this device and that it is working properly



Disk Drives
Generic IDE Disk type 47 is showing drive c

and the floppy drive is there also.

Thank you for taking your time on my problem.

Sut the PC down open it up and disconnect the ide cable and power cable from the CDRom drive, Reboot your PC, delete any icons that are in the MY Computer that relate to the CDRom.

shut it down and reboot it, ensure the icons aint reappeared

shut the PC down and then reconnect the drive.

Post back the result

Did that and no change. Then i unhooked both my cdrom and my cd-rw drives and deleted them from device manager. That still did not help.

I wonder if maybe the cdrom is just fried or something.

I think cdrom's have gotten cheap enough to maybe just replace it.

I don't have another puters to try it on. The only other one i have is the kids mac.

so when you pulled the cables from the drives what was showing in my computer?

had the mystery drive dissapeared ?

did you connect them up one at a time with a reboot inbetween each device being reconnected? If so was the CDRW ok

are they both on one ribbon cable?

so when you pulled the cables from the drives what was showing in my computer?the first time when i only pulled the cdrom it switched the cr-rw to d instead of e as it should have

had the mystery drive dissapeared ?

did you connect them up one at a time with a reboot inbetween each device being reconnected? If so was the CDRW ok yes i did and yes the cdrw is ok

are they both on one ribbon cable?
yes they are on one ribbon and have always been since i installed the cdrw over a year ago

okay so that was the answer to the last line of my questions ???

sorry the other answers were mixed up .

so when you pulled the cables from the drives what was showing in my computer?
It switched the cdrw to d instead of e, as it should have
I then diconnected both of them and removed cdrom from device manager.

had the mystery drive dissapeared ?

did you connect them up one at a time with a reboot inbetween each device being reconnected? If so was the CDRW ok
I did reconnect them one at a time and yes the cdrw is ok.

well I think youve tried everything, so time to plug in a new drive and see if the old one was damaged in some way.