cannot locate drivers

Hi, i have tried for weeks to locate drivers for my cd/dvd, i have now given up and only hope that someone here can guide me to a solution.
i have a packard bell ixtreme 6050 serial no 030455820025 that up until recently had xp installed and all was fine. due to hard drive failure i now run win me as the os on this machine however i am anable to use the cd or dvd players.pb support seem to suggest that the drivers available are for xp only? dvd is gdr 8162b- cd is gce 8483b. in device manager they have a yellow exclamation mark. also i am confused as to the term "driver" and something like "nero" silly question but having replaced hard drive do i need to install something similar to "nero" to run it? apologies for my ignorance but i hope someone can be of help.
thanks in advance
amanda

 

A "driver" is software that allows the operating system (windows) to communicate with a hardware device. (ie, Windows needs to know what signals to send to the drive to get it to do different things)

Nero is a CD burning program. This is not entirely neccessary, as windows has buning software built in, but it often makes things easier, and/or adds functionality.

May I ask why you didn't put Windows XP back on the machine? XP has a fantastic driver database, and will usually have what you need to use the drive. You can get drivers for ME, but XP is just so much better in so many ways.

This page should have all the drivers for your system, but they may only be for XP. (ie Packard Bell wasn't expecting ME to be on your system) Use caution when installing these.

I really recommend you investigate going back to XP. You've paid for a license, you should get your money's worth out of it. PB should have included the CDs necessary to do this, but if not, you should speak with them and see if you can get them.

 

Nvm!

 

thanks for your reply MM, the reason i have not re-installed xp is that i did attempt this with a new hard drive installed (cannot read off old one)
seemed so complicated tho' and the master cd's i have (1 red 1 green) do not play/read that is the confusing part because i read about formatting,tattoing,bios etc but it made no sense to me, as i understand it, as xp is hidden on my old drive which i cant access|| (new drive was set as master) understand that bit|
so put in master cd and nothing happens tried bios settings? to boot from cd? nothing again and as i am a complete novice i gave up.nb all terminology i have used is gained from searching the web so i dont really understand what i actually did or did'nt do wrong.what i think i needed was ...put in new hard drive (checking master is set) then do this..............??? lol
sorry but remembering my attempts last time re above tatooing,formatting etc i really dont have a clue and yes i would love to have xp running again.
thanks for your time again
amanda

 

It could be that PB has only given you restore discs. (one you could install from would say operating system, or install disc) These restore discs would install everything as PB had it configured as it left production. I would speak to them, and see if you can get just plain old installation media. Or if you have one already, the steps to install are below:

1. Configure BIOS to boot from CD
- Power on your computer
- Press the BIOS/Setup key (usually F1, or delete, but the first screen will say)
- Under boot priority/sequence/order or similar, set the CDROM to the top
2. Insert the Installation CD
3. Restart the computer
4. When prompted, press any key to boot from CD

From there, it is as simple as following the prompts to format the hard drive (that is, completely erase all data on it) and re-install windows.

If you need any further help, just post back!