# CD-ROM not working. HELP **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354 "2004-08-11T14:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aceospades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Aceospades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aceospades)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/1 "2004-08-11T14:30:15Z")
Help! My CD-ROM is not working. It worked just fine last week. I don’t know what’s wrong. I have a dell computer. The drive is a Microsoft LG CD-RW CED-8080B driver version 5.1.2535.0 Now I have just recently updated from windows ME to XP. In doing so my easy cd creator 4 became obsolete. I deleted the program and bought easy cd creator 6 to install on my computer, but now I can’t even get the drive to work. It asks me to uninstall and reinstall, which I did without success. It’s a plug and play but when I reinstall it doesn’t work. I tried looking on Microsoft web site for updated drivers thinking that that might be the problem, but could not find anything. I’m fresh out of ideas. Does any one know what’s wrong? ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/2 "2004-08-11T14:37:32Z")
EZCD is a funny thign with WINXP. I thionk there’s a well-known bug between the two and a patch available at the Roxio (or whatever they’re called these days) site. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/3 "2004-08-11T14:44:14Z")
and what happens if you uninstall EZCD. Does your machine still not ‘see’ the cd-rom drive? Reboot the machione, press ‘del’ or whatever it takes to get into the BIOS of the machine and check that the system sees the drive. Sometimes the bios will recognize it, the drive will work fine in MS-DOS but Windows will refuse to ‘see’ it. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/4 "2004-08-11T14:46:37Z")
Maybe not what you want but who knows ! [CD-ROM Access Is Missing and Messages Cite Error Code 31, Code 32, Code 19, or Code 39 After You Remove Easy CD Creator in Windows XP](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314060) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/5 "2004-08-11T14:47:26Z")
The drive doesn’t work as a burner in Creator or doesn’t work period? If it’s not working the system period I’d 1: Check that cables are seated properly (ie red cable stripe side aligned to pin on on MB socket) 2: Change jumpering form cable select (if that’s what you’re using to a definitive master-slave relatiosnhip and make sure the drive is sitting on the second IDE channel and not sharing the primary IDE channel and cable with the hard drive. 3: Check the drive manuf website and see if there are any firmware updates for the drive 4: Using right button menu clicking in the Windows (not internet) Explorer drive/system tree listing check My Computer\>Manage\>Disk Management and see if the drive appears in that list or not. If it does you probably have a conflict issue. If not on the list it’s probably a hardware install issue. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/6 "2004-08-11T15:59:20Z")
Check the BIOS on startup first. Make sure the CD drive is recondized and is configured properly. If that is OK, go to Startup - Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device manager. See if the CD drivers are ok. If they are not Ok, they will be displayed and have a bad mark next to them. If they are bad, I would just delete them and restart, but make sure you have your Windows XP CD first. At startup, the Windows should see the CD drive needs drivers and try to load them. It may or may not request the Windows CD. That has worked for me several times. ---
**Author:** ![Aceospades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Aceospades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aceospades)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/7 "2004-08-13T14:19:30Z")
I fixed the problem. I found [this page](http://www.driversearch.com/forums/cdrom/4895.html) and followed the instructions and it worked perfectly. Now, can someone tell me what it actually did to make my cd-rom work? ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/8 "2004-08-13T14:53:55Z")
Well, I really don’t want to come across as a whining brat or something but I did post a link to the solution 2 days ago where it says… > [@](#): > > STATUS > This is a known issue that can occur when you remove Easy CD Creator version 5.01 or earlier or DirectCD version 3.01c or earlier. This issue may also occur with Easy CD Creator version 5.01 and with DirectCD 3.01d or later. he page admits the problem but doesn’t really say why it happens though. Glad you managed to get it working, I had to reinstall Windows the first time it happened to me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Aceospades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Aceospades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aceospades)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cd-rom-not-working-help/259354/9 "2004-08-13T15:38:33Z")
> [@Ponster](#): > > Well, I really don’t want to come across as a whining brat or something but I did post a link to the solution 2 days ago where it says… > > he page admits the problem but doesn’t really say why it happens though. > > Glad you managed to get it working, I had to reinstall Windows the first time it happened to me 🙂 In the voice of Tutter from “Bear in the Big Blue House”, Thank you Ponster.