CD light always on - PC doesn't recognize it

My Dell Dimension 8200 is a few months over being 1 year old. Several things
are now occurring:

Right now as I operate using WinXP, the light on my CD burner drive (Drive
E is always on. The only way to open the unit is by using a paper clip and
forcing it open. There is no sound coming from it, in other words, it isn't
spinning. There is no CD in there but if there was the same thing would be
happenning.

In Windows Explorer the drive is not listed. Also using Control
Panel..System..Hardware.. Device Manager, it's not listed.

Also, my DVD Drive (Drive D is also not listed in either Explorer or
Device Manager.

I spoke with a tech at Dell Support but gave up in frustration. I couldn't
understand the woman with her accent.

Yesterday, when I restarted my PC before I got to the WinXP screen there was
a message about Secondary drives not being found. I hit F2 and looked at my
machine's setup. It did not have either the DVD or CD listed. When I then
hit ALT-F to get the factory settings, it only listed the DVD (and at that
it only set auto detect and not my actual drive). I would then, after quite
a while finally boot into WinXP.

If I shut machine down now and then reboot, I would have to go to the setup
to have the machine recognize the DVD. Still not the CD. Then when I would
get to WinXP, the DVD drive would be listed.

I did open up the box and unplugged/plugged the cables to/from both the DVD
and CD.

What's happenning and how do I fix?

What's happenning and how do I fix?

May need a clean... and or faulty hardware which is usually cheaper just
replace it than trying to get it fixed.

However do a complete shutdown and power down, walk away make a coffee and
then restart system. It may have just dropped the driver.

You may have to reinstall drivers etc...

If Windows doesn't detect it then there is a good chance it is a throw away
and get a new one...

Someone else may have a few other suggestions tho...

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The organic entity known as Carl Lucas communicated the following:

My Dell Dimension 8200 is a few months over being 1 year old. Several
things are now occurring:

Right now as I operate using WinXP, the light on my CD burner drive
(Drive E is always on. The only way to open the unit is by using a
paper clip and forcing it open. There is no sound coming from it, in
other words, it isn't spinning. There is no CD in there but if there
was the same thing would be happenning.

Sounds like either a defective drive, defective second IDE controller or
broken (or wrongly connected) cable.

In Windows Explorer the drive is not listed. Also using Control
Panel..System..Hardware.. Device Manager, it's not listed.

Makes sense.


Also, my DVD Drive (Drive D is also not listed in either Explorer or
Device Manager.

Sounds like like problems with the controller or cable.

I spoke with a tech at Dell Support but gave up in frustration. I
couldn't understand the woman with her accent.

Now you know how much of an effort we foreigners mst make to understand
americans.

Yesterday, when I restarted my PC before I got to the WinXP screen
there was a message about Secondary drives not being found. I hit F2
and looked at my machine's setup. It did not have either the DVD or CD
listed. When I then hit ALT-F to get the factory settings, it only
listed the DVD (and at that it only set auto detect and not my actual
drive). I would then, after quite a while finally boot into WinXP.

You can forget about XP. As soon as the drives are not recognized in the
BIOS, they sure will not get recognized by Windows.

If I shut machine down now and then reboot, I would have to go to the
setup to have the machine recognize the DVD. Still not the CD. Then
when I would get to WinXP, the DVD drive would be listed.

Sounds like the cables and controller are alright after al then. Perhaps
the DVD auto detect is hampered by the faulty CD drive.

I did open up the box and unplugged/plugged the cables to/from both
the DVD and CD.

What's happenning and how do I fix?

The problem seems to be a defective CD drive. Best to disconnect it, set
the DVD back to "auto detect" and start your computer. If it does, stop
your computer again and plug the IDE cable from the DVD into the CD. If
it now does not work you have eliminated possible problems with cable or
controller (or the other way round if the drie now works ok).

The solution to the problem depends on the previous analysis and how
confident you feel about solving it yourself. Otherwise all that remains
is a Dell-Technician-Language course

Hans

I had the same problem with my 4100. My DVD (master) went on the
blink. My CD burner (slave) was not recognized along with the DVD. Both were
cabled cable select (CS). Dell had me install the slave as a master and the
CD burner was recognized, they then replaced the DVD. Dell said if the
master is not recognized the slave will also not be reconized. You can also
try resetting the defaults on the 8200 by going to setup and turning all 3
keyboard lights on (num-lock, scroll-lock and caps-lock. Then press ALT+E
then ALT+F. Save and exit, if the drives are still not recognized swap out
the drives and see if the slave is recognized as a master. Hope this helps.

S3.


"Carl Lucas" wrote in message
. ..
My Dell Dimension 8200 is a few months over being 1 year old. Several
things
are now occurring:

Right now as I operate using WinXP, the light on my CD burner drive (Drive
E is always on. The only way to open the unit is by using a paper clip
and
forcing it open. There is no sound coming from it, in other words, it
isn't
spinning. There is no CD in there but if there was the same thing would be
happenning.

In Windows Explorer the drive is not listed. Also using Control
Panel..System..Hardware.. Device Manager, it's not listed.

Also, my DVD Drive (Drive D is also not listed in either Explorer or
Device Manager.

I spoke with a tech at Dell Support but gave up in frustration. I couldn't
understand the woman with her accent.

Yesterday, when I restarted my PC before I got to the WinXP screen there
was
a message about Secondary drives not being found. I hit F2 and looked at
my
machine's setup. It did not have either the DVD or CD listed. When I then
hit ALT-F to get the factory settings, it only listed the DVD (and at that
it only set auto detect and not my actual drive). I would then, after
quite
a while finally boot into WinXP.

If I shut machine down now and then reboot, I would have to go to the
setup
to have the machine recognize the DVD. Still not the CD. Then when I would
get to WinXP, the DVD drive would be listed.

I did open up the box and unplugged/plugged the cables to/from both the
DVD
and CD.

What's happenning and how do I fix?

Carl Lucas wrote:

My Dell Dimension 8200 is a few months over being 1 year old. Several
things are now occurring:

Right now as I operate using WinXP, the light on my CD burner drive (Drive
E is always on. The only way to open the unit is by using a paper clip
and forcing it open. There is no sound coming from it, in other words, it
isn't spinning. There is no CD in there but if there was the same thing
would be happenning.

In Windows Explorer the drive is not listed. Also using Control
Panel..System..Hardware.. Device Manager, it's not listed.

Also, my DVD Drive (Drive D is also not listed in either Explorer or
Device Manager.

I spoke with a tech at Dell Support but gave up in frustration. I couldn't
understand the woman with her accent.

You might as well have been talking to a house-brick.

Yesterday, when I restarted my PC before I got to the WinXP screen there
was a message about Secondary drives not being found. I hit F2 and looked
at my machine's setup. It did not have either the DVD or CD listed. When I
then hit ALT-F to get the factory settings, it only listed the DVD (and at
that it only set auto detect and not my actual drive). I would then, after
quite a while finally boot into WinXP.

If I shut machine down now and then reboot, I would have to go to the
setup to have the machine recognize the DVD. Still not the CD. Then when I
would get to WinXP, the DVD drive would be listed.

I did open up the box and unplugged/plugged the cables to/from both the
DVD and CD.

What's happenning and how do I fix?

Sounds like the drive is ****ed, replacements are very cheap now.
--
Paul S

"S3Trio" *spam wrote
if the master is not recognized the slave will also not be reconized.

Sometimes. Not always. It's a good thing to check though.

Carl, not knowing how familiar you are to computers, the CD and DVD drives
are connected using a technology called IDE. You can have four IDE drives
in a standard system. There are two cables and you can connect up to two
drives to each cable. One cable is named primary and one is named
secondary. Then each drive connected to the cable is given either a
position of Master or Slave. This all lets the computer know how to
communicate with the drive.

First, were the CD and DVD drives both on the same cable? If so you must
set one to master and one to slave. (They may be both on cable select...if
so take it off and try master or slave.) On the back of the drive there are
one or two little plastic jumpers which are a square of plastic just small
enough so you can spend an hour looking for it if you drop it. They can be
removed with tweezers or needle nose pliers. Somewhere else on the drive
there will be either a sticker or some sort of imprint that tells you how to
position the jumper to set the drive to either master or slave.

Were the CD and DVD on different cables? If so one of the cables is
probably connected to the hard drive. The hard drive should be set to
Master, so set the CD or DVD that is connected to the same cable as the hard
drive to slave. Put the remaining drive on the other cable and set it to
master.

There is a right and wrong way to put the IDE cable in. (This is the flat,
usually gray cable.) There is a stripe on one side which is usually red.
On the drive there will be the number 1 or an arrow on one side of the pins
where it plugs in. This is where the red stripe goes. Sometimes there is a
little notch in the cable so it can only fit in one way in which case you
don't have to worry about it. If you put it in backwards on a CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive the most common symptom is that the light on the drive will
stay on and not go out.

Good luck

When this happened to me, it turned out that one of my CD
drives was dead/defective. Once I identified which drive
(by alternately disconnecting first one, then the other)
Dell sent me a replacement drive, under warranty. The bad
CD drive failed when it was less than a year old - well,
after only a few months, actually.

The symptoms I experienced were almost identical to yours.
The defective drive, in my case, turned out to be the burner
drive, not the DVD drive. If you are out of warranty, a new
drive is not very expensive to purchase unless it is a DVD
burner.

-- Don

Carl Lucas wrote:

My Dell Dimension 8200 is a few months over being 1 year old. Several things
are now occurring:

Right now as I operate using WinXP, the light on my CD burner drive (Drive
E is always on. The only way to open the unit is by using a paper clip and
forcing it open. There is no sound coming from it, in other words, it isn't
spinning. There is no CD in there but if there was the same thing would be
happenning.

In Windows Explorer the drive is not listed. Also using Control
Panel..System..Hardware.. Device Manager, it's not listed.

Also, my DVD Drive (Drive D is also not listed in either Explorer or
Device Manager.

I spoke with a tech at Dell Support but gave up in frustration. I couldn't
understand the woman with her accent.

Yesterday, when I restarted my PC before I got to the WinXP screen there was
a message about Secondary drives not being found. I hit F2 and looked at my
machine's setup. It did not have either the DVD or CD listed. When I then
hit ALT-F to get the factory settings, it only listed the DVD (and at that
it only set auto detect and not my actual drive). I would then, after quite
a while finally boot into WinXP.

If I shut machine down now and then reboot, I would have to go to the setup
to have the machine recognize the DVD. Still not the CD. Then when I would
get to WinXP, the DVD drive would be listed.

I did open up the box and unplugged/plugged the cables to/from both the DVD
and CD.

What's happenning and how do I fix?

Don Enderton wrote:

When this happened to me, it turned out that one of my CD
drives was dead/defective. Once I identified which drive
(by alternately disconnecting first one, then the other)
Dell sent me a replacement drive, under warranty. The bad

Dell has had a rash of bad cdrom drives in their new systems lately.
This niggle can drive you crazy as you dont expect it.


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