CD/DVD-Drive Not Detected (Dimension 8400)

[MSgherzi]

A customer brought me her Dell Dimension 8400 desktop PC claiming that a few weeks ago the CD and DVD drives were no longer being detected. I've been working on this thing for hours and I've tried Googling and using every possible solution I can think of. So, I need some help. Here's what I've done so far:

* Opened case and re-seated cables, power cords, and drives.
* Updated drivers
* Updated firmware
* Flashed BIOS
* Booted into Safe Mode
* Used System Restore and went back before the problem occurred
* Cleaned PC using CCleaner
* Looked in Device Manager and there are no drives or anything related to a CD or DVD drive, and nothing has a yellow question mark
* Ran DELL Diagnostics from partition Utility
* Deleted "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" files under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/Curretcontrolset/Control/Class/{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
* Used a utility to delete StarForce drivers. None were present.

Drive does NOT show up in BIOS or when I click My Computer, all that shows up is local disk C. BIOS shows "On board or USB CD Drive (not present)." My only suspicion is that it's a bad IDE connector because the drives eject perfectly fine. When I put a CD or DVD in, the green light lights up for a few seconds and then nothing happens, I don't even hear it spinning. So it's either a bad drive or bad IDE cables. But if the drives are bad, what are the chances that they both died at exactly the same time? I need some help here because I don't know much about hardware and many of you do.

Specs:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 2
Dell Dimension 8400
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz 3.19GHz
1 GB of RAM


Thanks in advance,
Matthew

 

[Resler]

I assume that the 8400 is very similar to the 8200 Ive had for almost 7 years. I had a similar problem with both of my drives not working at the same time. They didnt work until I had to reformat for a different problem and after that they worked. But back then I wasn't who I was today and I never did anything to fix the problem so I don't know how it could have been fixed if I tried to fix it.

Have you tried out either of the drives in a separate machine? Put it in a computer that you know has good cables and try the drive. If the drive works then you know the drive is fine. You should also put a good drive in the customers computer and see if it works in that computer. If the good drive works then you know the cables are fine. If both the cables and the drive work fine then there's something really screwy going on but I'd guess that at least one of those two tests won't work.

 

[RonWood]

I did not catch on to if you tried these or not.

1) Does it boot to a CD or a DVD?
2) Does the BIOS show any information related to them?
3) Removed the CMOS battery and reset it completely?
4) Done any virus detection?

I would also recommend using a known good drive and also testing that drive in another known good system.

 

[MSgherzi]

I unfortunately do not have any other machines or drives that work at the moment. And I'm unsure as to how I would reset the CMOS battery.

It will not boot into any CD or DVD and BIOS shows nothing about those drives even being alive.

I havent done any virus scanning yet but that's my next stop, most likely.

I'm kinda on a budget so I don't have any other drives or any other desktops that I can put the broken drive into. If I got some sort of external device where I could put the drive into and connected that to my laptop, wouldn't that be just as good? If so could look for a cheap device.

 

[atlanticjim]

Suggestions:
There should be a CMOS reset jumper even on a Dhell mainboard. But if you flashed the BIOS it would have been reset it anyway.

Of course check the Master/Slave/CableDetect jumpers on the drives. Connect one drive set to master to the cable and see if bios and windows detects. Power down and connect second drive, set as Slave and power up. This worked for me one time. Sometimes these bios chips are just picky.

Perhaps the southbridge chip is kaput i.e. new mainboard. Check with Dhell and see if it is in any replacement program.

 

[MSgherzi]

I checked with a local tech shop today and the guy said that if there is no spinning of any cds or dvds, as there isn't, then it's likely that both drives probably died. He's willing to sell me a CD/DVD reader and burner all in one drive for just $70.00. I'm going to try a couple more things before I go that route. But he said that even if the IDE cables are disconnected, you should still hear spinning, which was my conclusion as well. No spinning equals a dead drive more than likely.

 

[NWPhotog]

I checked with a local tech shop today and the guy said that if there is no spinning of any cds or dvds, as there isn't, then it's likely that both drives probably died. He's willing to sell me a CD/DVD reader and burner all in one drive for just $70.00. I'm going to try a couple more things before I go that route. But he said that even if the IDE cables are disconnected, you should still hear spinning, which was my conclusion as well. No spinning equals a dead drive more than likely.

You can buy a DVD?CD burner for less than $30 US. Try Newegg.com.

 

[MSgherzi]

**UPDATE**

Today I got my hands on a working computer with working parts. I switched drives, and the bad drives work on the working PC. I switched IDE cables, all cables are fine. I put the new drive in the old computer, same problem, BIOS and the computer both do not detect it. I tested this drive and it is working on the PC that I just got, so I know the drive is okay.

So if both drives are good, both IDEs are good, yet the bad computer still doesn't detect it, what else should I be looking for?

 

[seedubya]

What channel are the drives attached to? Is that channel enabled in the BIOS? Have you tried a HDD on the same channel? Have you checked for bent or missing pins on your board? Any sign of damage to your board? Have you reset the cmos either by jumper or removing the battery. The batter is approx. 1" diameter cirular and silver, sits in a socket on the main board. Just remove it and leave it out for a mo' if you can't find the reset jumper.

 

[MSgherzi]

What channel are the drives attached to? Is that channel enabled in the BIOS? Have you tried a HDD on the same channel? Have you checked for bent or missing pins on your board? Any sign of damage to your board? Have you reset the cmos either by jumper or removing the battery. The batter is approx. 1" diameter cirular and silver, sits in a socket on the main board. Just remove it and leave it out for a mo' if you can't find the reset jumper.

Dude, I love you! Resetting the CMOS battery did the job. It detects the drives now and it works like gold. This was driving me nuts so thanks to everyone who helped!

Something interesting, the so-called "CD" drive is actually a CD and DVD reader and writer, and then there's a DVD drive which doesn't even seem to detect DVDs. Funny, whoever built this thing must have gotten confused or something and added two.

Does newegg or anyone sell a little cover for those drives? I'm going to take that other DVD drive out since it's not needed but I don't want to have that hole where you can see inside the system. So i'm curious if anyone sells a cover for that for the dimension 8400.

Again, thank you for helping me fix this! I appreciate it much, since I'm still a work in-progress and I'm learning bits and pieces when it comes to hardware.

Matthew

 

[atlanticjim]

Thanks for posting the solution, it is good to hear of success.

As for the opening in the case, fill it with either a sweet cheap CD/DVD/LightScribe burner or install a front panel insert with audio jacks / USB sockets / card readers or any combination of those items.

Look at nMEDIAPC ZE-C128 Black Aluminum Panel 5.25"All-in-one USB x 3 / IEEE 1394 / eSATA / HD (or AC97) Audio Internal Card Reader

Again congrats with the success.

 

[MSgherzi]

Thanks.

I don't think I want to spend $25.00 on something that my customer may not even use. Is there any place I can simply buy a cheap plastic cover for it?

Also, I think it'd be beneficial for me to buy a new CMOS battery for my client. This usually isn't the case unless the battery is on the edge of death. When I search on newegg for cmos batteries all I get are cameras in the search results, though.

However, this website has a CMOS battery that says is compatible with the Dimension 8400:

http://www.impactcomputers.com/75481.html


^ Good idea?