Both D & E disk drives ?

About 3 months ago, I heard "popping sounds" that seemed to be coming from this pc. This sound has occurred 3 times. Since we have our trash can sitting near the box to place our plastic soda bottles in, we figured it was them popping somehow. Then we noticed both D & E disk drives no longer work. Then a couple of weeks ago we noticed sporadic pc freezing, which I have asked about in another post. (I think I placed this other post in the wrong forum accidentally as I was in the Malware forum looking for answers about my pc protective programs.)

Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be occurring relative to the D & E disk drives not working; and if so, can we do something to repair it without taking it into a repairman?

Thanking you in advance.

 

Let's just get some more information from you:

What make/model is the computer?

Roughly how old is it?

If you look in device manager (right-click on my computer --> manage --> device manager in the left hand side of the screen) and double click on the disk drives section, how many devices show up?

If you open disk management (right click on my computer --> manage --> disk management) how many devices appear in the list in the bottom of the screen?

 

I agree with Collins as much info about the system as possible please.

Even if you just hit (windows+r) and then type in dxdiag and provide info from there would be a great start.

 

Ok thanks.

I don't know how to "...hit (windows+r)..."; thus, I cannot type in "dxdiag" to provide that information.

1. What make/model is the computer? I have not been able to find the make/model of this pc.

2. Roughly how old is it? We bought it new in December 2006. Other than present situation, we have had no problems whatsoever with this pc, except for having to replace 2 modems, the last one now being in for over a year.

3. Looking in device manager, this is what was discovered when double clicking on "disk drives":
... only one display named "ST380011A"

4. Looking in disk management, this is what shows up on the bottom of the screen:
... Disk 0 Basic 74.53 GB Online .. to the right of this is "(C: ) 74.53 GB NTFS Healthy (System)
... CD-ROM 0 DVD (D: ) No Media .. to the right of this there is nothing
... CD-ROM 1 CD-ROM (E: ) No Media .. to the right of this there is nothing

This is what I discovered under "Start > Accessories > System Tools > System Information:
... OS Name = Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
... Version = 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
... OS Manufacturer = Microsoft Corporation
... System Name = STARR
... System Manufacturer = INTEL_
... System Model = D845PESV
... System Type = X86-based PC
... Processor = x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~2666 Mhz
... BIOS Version/Date = Intel Corp. SV84510A.86A.0013.PO8.0303171920, 3/17/2003
... SMBIOS Version = 2.3
... Windows Directory = C:\WINDOWS
... System Directory = C:\WINDOWS\system32
... Boot Device = \Device\Harddisk Volume 1
... Locale = United States
... Hardware Abstraction Layer = Version = "5.1.2600.5512(xpsp.080413-2111)"
... User Name = STARR\Owner
... Time Zone = Eastern Standard Time
... Total Physical Memory = 1,280.00 MB
... Available Physical Memory = 720.07 MB
... Total Virtual Memory = 2.00 GB
... Available Virtual Memory = 1.96 GB
... Page File Space = 1.48 GB
... Page File = C:\pagefile.sys

Does this help? (Yesterday the entire pc froze 5 times during about 12 hours. Today it has not frozen at all and we have been on it over 12 hours already.)

 

To run DXDIAG, hold down the "start" or "windows" key - just to the right of the left hand CTRL key, and press R. This will open a run box. Type dxdiag into there and press enter. This will open a widow with many tabs across the top of the screen. Each tab has a test to run and the tab that the window opens into should automatically run it's test. A progress bar should be in the bottom left corner of the screen. Once this has completed post the info from the first tab (in a sceenshot if possible) and then run the tests on the second tab and post a screenshot. Then proceed through all the remaining tabs until you have completed them all.

 

Collins, I have done as you said. I found the "start" key (not on my pc; but on my keyboard) and the rest was simple.

I am now in the process of finding out how to place pictures on a post in here as I have 8 of them. As soon as I find out how, I will post them.

You are so kind to help me. Thank you.

 

Well, I seem to be making a mess of uploading the 8 files. I will try again.









Hope this works. The pictures are in order of the tabs.

I am guessing I need to place the remaining 4 pictures in a different post; so will do that now.

How on earth can you read these files? They are so small.

 

Here are the remaining 4 files. I have no idea how you are going to be able to read these. When I make them larger in here, they are blurred.









This is all the pictures.

WOW! I just saw all these pictures enlarge themselves. Wish I had just 1/100th of this type of knowledge as you all do.

Please do what you can to protect my computer. Placing all this pc information on a public forum is worrying me.

 

Well, going by your earlier post about disk management your PC is only detecting one HD. Are D: and E: on a second HD?

 

From the info posted above, D & E are optical drives (CD/DVD). Only one hard drive is detected, a Seagate 80gb and it comes up as "healthy". If you look in "My Computer", are the CD/DVD drives listed? They show up in the 'System Information' list. If they do not appear in "My Computer", check the Device Manager under CD/DVD Drives and see if they are listed there. If they're listed there (even if they have yellow exclamation points), but not in "My Computer", then we have a potential software issue which can usually be solved by running the steps in this thread. I usually right-click the CD/DVD drive in the Device Manager and select 'Uninstall' before using the steps in the thread I linked to, then after following the steps, restart the PC. If that doesn't work, let us know and we'll move on to some other things.... good luck!!

 

Here is a picture of what I saw when clicking Start > My Computer



As you can see, they do show up.

 

Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting both Drives to ensure a cable hasn't become dislodged and or poorly connected.

 

Sad to say, I am not geeky. I have no idea how to disconnect and then reconnect both drives. :cry

 

Since they are optical drives try dlb's link above. Or this one and click download at the upper left corner. Then rename file ending in .zip (delete the "_" at the end of the name) and unzip it. In the unzipped folder will be the file xpcd.reg, right-click it and select Merge. Say yes to the warning and when finished reboot the computer and try the optical drives.