Help.. Ok I have a PC that in windows 98.. it will not recognize the CD-rom. It had been doing it but it suddenly stopped. I have not added anything to the Pc lately. Now what is strange is the BIO DOES recognize the Cd-Rom. I see it reporting a 56X cd-rom. And then it loads the atapi drivers and all that. Yet when you go to my computer in windows 98. it simply is not there. What is the deal on this?? Any help would be appreciated.. .. it will see the C drive and the Floppy. but no CD-rom..

Is there an entry for it in device manager? Any problems reported there? If so, try removing the entry from device manager, reboot and see if the drive is redetected Also, under 'System' - 'Performance' - see if any drives are using "compatibility mode" "And then it loads the atapi drivers and all that" Those are probably the DOS drivers, and not really required by Windows - might try disabling autoexec.bat & config.sys from msconfig to see if that helps (reboot) If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

doesnt show up in device manager at all. i will try to disable the auto and config. and see if that helps.

If it's just been a few days since it happened you may be able to restore a previous registry. Shutdown windows and choose to restart in msdos mode. Then at the prompt type scanreg/restore and enter. Choose a registry to restore with a date that precedes the problem. If that doesn't work, run regedit and do a search for noide. Delete any references you find. Then exist regedit and reboot.

If the above doesn't help, I would suggest doing a win98 re-install without a format.

Ok this is what I found but it doesn’t make sense. First let me explain more. The Pc that I am working on. Well this HD is just a mess. I mean the person whom it belongs to has so much crap on there it is hard to figure out why this thing even works. Is am sure they may have viruses etc on there. Anyway . this is what I have found. I went on one of my old Pc’s and went into the auto exec and config sys to see what is in there. And they pretty much are empty. BUT the pc I am working on. Well in the auto exec and config.sys.. there were lines in there adding the CD-Rom. Meaning the MSCDEX lines. And they were commented out. Since I was unable to get the system to recognize the CD-ROM.. just for giggles and grins. I went and un Rem the lines so they were now present and rebooted. And NOW the system sees the CD-Rom. My ?? Is why is this like that. I mean it shouldn’t have to be in there but in this system it HAS to be in order for it to be recognized.. also I have noticed the video card is not being recognized.. it is a trident sis 6326.. and when getting into windows 98 . it only shows 16 colors. Well under device manager. I go to the display adaptor. And under there the only thing that shows is “plug and play” monitor. No video card at all. In MY win 98 system. The monitor is in its own section. I DID reinstall the sis drivers and then the system had to reboot. But it still will not recognize the card. it still only shows 16 colors.. I think this Pc I am working on is 98 SE.. is that where the monitor shows in SE?? or no?? any ideas on that and why the auto exec and config files HAVE to have the MSCDEX lines in them in order to see the drive??

The CD entries in config.sys and autoexec.bat are needed for some old drives. This is true for a lot of win95 systems. I don't understand the video card/monitor problem. Try removing the monitor and video driver in the Device Manager. Make sure that you reinstall the correct video diver. You could also try a windows reinstall without a format. As a last resort, maybe a format/install. After saving as much data as possible, of course.