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At last all our problems will
be over. The very latest version of Windows has fixed absolutely
all the bugs in earlier versions. Well maybe it has but unfortunately
the designers were not content with just fixing all the bugs,
they had to write lots of new stuff that carries probably more
bugs than SP2 was supposed to fix.
Already patches are being placed for
download on the Microsoft site and the new updated XP gaily picks
them up (totally automatically of course) and installs them willy-nilly.
I think the silly bug about "not having an up-to-date anti-virus"
has been sorted out. Whether this has been fixed by Symantec
or Microsoft or a combination of both I don't know, but at least
we're no longer concerned by the warning message that our computer
will drop dead if we don't load another anti-virus program.
The latest problem I've come across
led me a merry dance. Is it XP or is it something else??
I built a new computer for my brother in law recently and by
chance had loaded SP2 quite early in the proceedings. After copying
his old Windows 98 to a new drive and updating it to XP Pro,
I must have installed an additional CDROM.
At some point I noticed that sometimes,
even though a disk was in place, I got the message that there
was "no disk".
The obvious thing I thought was that the laser was a little tired
and focus couldn't be obtained so no disk was recognised. This
is common with audio CD players that have had lots of use. Either
a tired laser or a layer of dust or nicotine on the lens will
cause this fault.
So, full of confidence, I fitted a new CD drive.
After inserting a CD it worked fine
so I turned off the computer and put the machine on one side
for collection the next day.
At some unearthly hour Riki turned up
to collect his new computer.
I always demonstrate new computers as a matter of course and
after some preliminary work placed an audio CD into the top drive.
After a minute or two one of the media players opened and music
came from the speakers.
You can also play a CD from the other drive, I said, and swapped
the disk. Nothing.
I tried opening the drive icon and was rewarded with the message
no disk, insert a CD etc….
I was then a little confused. Had I selected D or E? I tried
the other icon (the one for the RW drive) and it opened but with
no files showing.
This seemed to be the problem I'd had
before changing the CD Drive for a new one.
After rebooting and experimenting for ages, I discovered the
simple fact that it was always the first CD drive one tried that
worked, leaving the other "disk-less".
Was it a problem with compatibility?
I changed the cable to a new ATA133
type. No change.
I swapped the drives from master-slave to slave-master…
no change.
Was the new rewriter at fault?
I fitted a new drive, a different make even, but to no avail.
My supplier was baffled but sent me
zipped up ASPI drivers. These went in but with still the same
results.
What if I fitted one of the CD drives to the primary IDE port
with the hard drive? This was not easy. In this particular box
a standard cable wouldn't stretch between either of the CD drives
and the hard drive. Have you noticed that for some reason cable
manufacturers seem to mount the sockets on the wrong side of
the cable, requiring a convolution or complicated twist to get
them into place?
Anyway with this particular box the cable just wouldn't reach.
I thought about remounting the hard drive. Sometimes mounting
it the other way up with the power cable downwards will squeeze
another inch or so from the IDE cable. Unfortunately, after removing
the metal tray and detaching the drive, I discovered there were
no mounting holes in the metal plate for this option, so back
it went after wasting another 30 minutes.
We then found a mounting space underneath
the CD drives so out came the hard drive again and, after some
more convolutions, got it screwed down with an ATA133 cable satisfactorily
stretched in place.
The other CDROM remained on the secondary IDE bus.
After switching on the power and rebooting we got an error message
straight away about the drive not being ATAPI compatible.
Why was this?
It turned out that this particular motherboard need prompting
to change the positions of the drives.
After fixing this we rebooted and…. Exactly the same. The
first drive to be offered a disk accepted it and it worked OK.
The other didn't see it.
By this time 4 hours had passed and
Riki decided to take the machine as it was and we'd sort out
the problem later….. Maybe?
Any clues? |
