CD Drawer Locks Closed

[Ole_Man]

FED,

YOU BE DA MAN!!!  My problem has been resolved resulting indirectly from your suggestion, but I don't know / understand what actually resolved it.  Here is what happened:

After reading your post recommending that I "try another disk" I was in the process of preparing my post in response to yours in which I was about to report that I had tried all possible varieties of disks, but to no avail . . . . . Each and every variety that I had tried resulted in the drawer operating properly, EXCEPT those on which I have stored digital photographs.  Then it occurred to me that there is one variety of disk that I had not tried and that was a blank formatted disk (I had tried blank disks, but not a formatted one).  Soooo, I placed a blank disk in the drawer; closed it and used the Roxi Easy CD Creator 5 basis software to format it for future use for storing digital pictures to.  When the format operation was complete I was able to eject it by depressing the button by the drawer.  I then returned that same disk to the drawer; closed it and depressed the button, which resulted in it ejecting normally.  Next I placed a a disk on which I had previously stored digital photos on (this is the variety that would NOT eject) into the drawer; closed the drawer; depressed the button to open the drawer . . . . . AND much to my surprise it opened normally!!!  I have since tried numerous other disks of this variety that would not earlier reject and in each and every case the drawer has operated normally.

Consequently, THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN RESOLVED!!!  I do not understand what actually "fixed" whatever was "broken", but it is fixed!!  

THANKS, VERY, VERY MUCH TO EACH PERSON (Rob Pomeroy, street1, Phoenix910 and FED) THAT HAS POSTED A RESPONSE ATTEMPTING TO HELP ME!!  I AM MOST APPRECIATIVE FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.

[patio]

Thumbnail view in Windows Explorer pwerhaps ? ?

[phoenix910]

Ok, now that we have established that the disk won't boot the computer, this could mean about 3 different things.

A) A BIOS boot setting isn't set properly, but considering you installed XP using a CD previously, your computer isn't booting from that CD now and you probably haven't changed those settings since then, as well as the fact that the CD drive is also not working in windows, this is probably not the case.

B) IDE cable failure. When you bought the new cd drive to test out, did they give you a new IDE cable (the wide, flat, probably grey cable) to use, or did you use the old one? If they gave you a new cable, then this is probably option C. If they didn't, I would suggest buying a new IDE cable for around $5 and testing the CD drive with that first.

C) IDE Slot failure. This is where the IDE cable plugs in on your motherboard. I do not know exactly how your settings are inside your computer, but they would likely be one of two things. Either:
-CD Drive and Hard Drive are connected on the same cable in the same slot
-CD Drive and Hard Drive are connected on different cables to differen slots
If your hard drive and CD drive are connected via the same cable, then it is probably cable failure. If however, they are connected by different cables to different slots, then this would probably be a slot failure, in which case I will tell you how to connect them both on the same cable and the same slot. Let me know in your next post which one of these it is.


In regards to the whipper snapper comment, no offence whatsoever taken  . Just trying to put my knowledge to use by helping other people.

[phoenix910]

I was typing the last post obviously as you posted yours, and it seems the issue has been resolved then, and the reason it wasn't booting was probably a BIOS setting, as for the discs working now, sometimes the software does funny things like this and just starts working. It could have also been a Roxio software issue, but either way, if it is working now, it's all fine.