Forgive me if this has been posted before. Small problem driving me nuts.
After uninstalling some software (CD writing software) and rebooting I find that neither of my CDRoms are working. Both are displayed with an exclamation point in the Device manager. Windows claims that it cannot find the drivers for them (code 31).
When I click on “driver details” I am given the names of three files in system32/drivers folder – including the generic cdrom.sys which I believe should work fine. When I attempt to update drivers then windows recommends using the generic driver already on the system and offers to install.
Fine. I click the button to install and reboot as requested, only to find myself back at square one.
If windows knows what drivers are required, and where they are, and can install, then why does it keep losing the connection between the hardware and the software.
A little help would be appreciated. (Hope this all makes sense.)
Don’t know if this would help you but you can give it a try.
Under Device Manager, remove the CD Drive altogether. Reboot. Win2K should automatically find the hardware and install the appropriate driver from the i386 folder or other location where the Windows Installation CAB files are located. Hopefully not on a CD.
Insert your Win2K installation CD, instead of installing, select the Restore process. Let it go through the process but be careful not to select any options that are destructive to your data. E.G. Formatting, Partitioning etc. The restoration process will detect all hardware fresh and install a fresh copy of the required drivers.
Give it a go and see what happens. If you get any errors let me know exactly what they say and we may try to trace the problem that way.
p.s. Having the driver files in the right location does not mean that they are correctly “installed”. Usually during installation, the drivers are “linked” to certain hardware, software, memory locations etc. All this is located in the registry. During un-installation, a lot of times the softwares do not fully “remove” themselves and any relevant “links”. Therefore, even if you keep re-installing the drivers, they are not going to work right.
Therefore, the restore process helps in this sense. I have to mention however that this is not a guaranteed fix and there are some risks involved so make sure you back up your data before attempting this fix or any others.
Thanx.
Drives are an LG cdrw/dvd combo and an Asus rw. Not that I think that makes any difference. They were both working fine under the generic drivers a little while ago. The culprit is the software I was uninstalling, which as **ur8it **alluded to is one of those notorious bits of software that does not remove itself fully. A search indicates many other people having similar installation/uninstallation problems as what I have had.
I was hoping not to have to resort to a reinstallation of windows of any kind. The drives both boot up ok on the installation cd, but I was reluctant to go any further until I was sure I had exhausted other possibilities.
How common is it for hardware to become orphaned from its drivers? Anyone else had experience with this?
