What driver am I missing?

**Dantheman** · 09-25-2006, 05:08 PM

Had to format my hard drive recently and everything is working pretty well. But, I just tried to load a CD to start restoring my data and the CD-RW and DVD won't read anything. I assume I'm just missing a driver, any ideas?

**LaramieSkiBum** · 09-25-2006, 05:30 PM

unless its a USB drive, I'm betting it's not a driver issue. You didn't unplug anything, only did a OS reinstall? This is windows XP?

edit:

I take that back now that I think about it. Check your Device List and look for question marks. Your probably missing a driver for the motherboard chipset or IDE controller, but it's strange that XP wouldn't have something that would work temporarly, after all your harddrive should be on the same chipset - unless they hooked up to a onboard RAID controller.

Best bet is to tell us what has question marks next to it in your Device List. Right click on my computer, goto properties, and then Hardware tab. Click on Device List. Better yet post a screen shot of it.

**LaramieSkiBum** · 09-25-2006, 05:42 PM

if your comp is not homemade and from a major company like dell or such -> goto their website and download all the drivers for your specific machine and install them. Start with the chipset / IDE drivers, but really you want to install them all anyway - Sound, Video, (USB chipset, motherboard chipset, IDE), ethernet, modem

(<-->) could all be in one package, or you may have to install them seperately. Since you've already backed your data up, don't worry about restarting before each install, you should be ok installing them all or most of them in one swoop.

**RShea** · 09-25-2006, 06:52 PM

First issue is have you gone into the computers Bios and checked to see the order of devices for booting up the system? The CD or optical drive has to be the first device in the list if you have not been able to do the reload of the OS.

Next issue is the system disk you are trying to use to reload the computer? If it is a name brand like Dell or HP then the disk is a custom disk. Some of these companies have a special hidden partition on the original hard drive to allow you to start the reload. If you have to, you can see if you can download the Windows XP floppy start up disks from Microsoft's web site. I had to do this for a Dell computer recently- the restore CD stated missing OS or no boot - insert a boot disk in drive A:

If Windows is already loaded then as others have stated the problem could be the system drivers or you may need to install the motherboard drivers. Which OS are you reloading? XP is pretty good about having popular chipset drivers included, but older versions of Windows (98, 2000 Pro, etc.) are usually not as complete and require the drivers CD that came with the system or download from the internet from the board or system manufacturer.

**RShea** · 09-25-2006, 07:30 PM

This may help also if it is a registry problem (the registry hold info about the hardware and software):

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_d...cd_dvd_fix.htm