[geno368]

I have an older XP system which I am trying to fix for my son..it is a Pent,4-1.7 w/512mb ram. When I started cleaning it up and deleting old data, I found that the cd drive and the dvd drive doesn't work...the drive doors open and close, but neither one is listed in device manager. I looked inside the tower and all seems connected correctly. How to I check out the problem? Thanks.

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Try one of these:
1. http://aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip
or...
2. Go to Device Manager, click a "+" sign next to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
You'll see two items:
- ATA Channel0 (or Primary Channel)
- ATA Channel1 (or Secondary Channel)
Right click on each of them, and click Uninstal. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[Broni]

Try one of these:
1. http://aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip
or...
2. Go to Device Manager, click a "+" sign next to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
You'll see two items:
- ATA Channel0 (or Primary Channel)
- ATA Channel1 (or Secondary Channel)
Right click on each of them, and click Uninstal. Confirm.
Restart Windows. They'll be automatically reinstalled.

[geno368]

Under that plus sign is the following:

Intel® 82801BA bus master IDE Controller

Primary IDE Channel

[Broni]

In this case, it controls your hard drive, and optical drives.
Uninstall it, and it'll get reinstalled upon restart.

Did you try "cdgone"?

[geno368]

Yes I ran cdgone and used the reg editor file also...It re-installed the above mentioned files exactly like they were before...I then unplugged the ribbon cables and re-seated both of them....one other note: Thsi is a dell dimension 8200, and several years ago my hard drive crashed and they sent me another...I just installed it and unplugged the other one...The system designates the new drive as F:\ and the only other one shown iis floppy A...When I plug in my USB flash drive, it names it c:.....Is there a possibility that the motherboard is looking for the cd drive somewhere else?...I am lost...Thanks

[Broni]

Go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management, and see what drives are listed there.
I'm not a hardware guy, but are you sure, the connection inside your computer (after installing new drive) are correct?