My wife aquired a howard pentium III notebook but I'm having problems with the cd rom drive not wanting to load up a disc, audio or data. It came loaded with win98 but I'm wanting to wipedrive it and re-install 2000 or xp. It tells me that the device is working properly but it also tells me that no drivers have been installed. When go and click the update driver function nothing happens. It shows a device not ready message also. Can anyone tell me what I can try to get the cd rom drive to work so I can load a different op system?

Pronanly from the motebook maker. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Any modern laptop modern enough to run 2000 or XP should not require proprietary CDROM drivers. My guess is that the drive is flakey Is that in a "swappable" (removeable) drive bay? Maybe the connector is going bad. How can you boot the computer? Does it have a bootable floppy drive? Have you tried a bootable CD in the drive, to see if it will boot from the CDROM?

Since Windows95, no drivers have been required for all but the most exotic optical drives. Windows will report the drive to be workng if the controller board responds. This means the electronics are working. However windows does not test the read laser, this would appear to be where the problem lies. Sometimes you can clean out the dust using compressed air. If this does not work, then it is likely that the laser is burnt out or the lens' are displaced. This requires replacement of the drive. M2, do you want to try moving your keyboard a quarter of an inch to the right?

Well Doug, if you are going to wipe the drive and install another OS anyway, you are wasting your time trying to get the CD-ROM drive working with the one currently installed! All you need is a good bootdisk with CD-ROM support. Download a suitable bootdisk from my Powerload BootDisk Project or from Bootdisk.com All you have to do is create your boot floppy disk and boot from it, then see if your CD drive works with it. If it does, you're ready to wipe and install your new OS. The installation should take charge of the CD unit so it works when it's done. Should be that simple, HTH HTH Lightspeed. The Oldfiles Network

Hi Rimfire, "M2, do you want to try moving your keyboard a quarter of an inch to the right?" I'm having more and more of those señor moments. How 'bout I move the chair 1/4" left? If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Hi M2, N instead of B and M instead of N. I think you might try the other left or you'll make the problem worse!