missing drives

both my D AND E drves have disappeared! all system checks show nothing but a and c drives.... i know there in there somewhere..can you actually delete a drive as if it were a file? im thinking they got pushed up a letter
so there not being read? can anyone shed some light on this help i also have a sound problem but ill post that seperatly
im running win98 sec edit

 

Hi. You don't say what the D: and E: drives are, whether other partitions on your hdd or optical drives, zips or what. Reboot and enter the BIOS setup utility and see if the BIOS sees the drives. If yes, then you probably have a software (Windoze) problem, as opposed to a hardware failure. Good night and good luck.

 

hi, i just had my d and e drives go awol (cd/rw and dvd/rw) changed my ide cable and they came back

 

d is cd rom and e is cd burner IM BAFFLED

 

Hi. I am pretty sure that the drivers for cd-rom's and cd-rw's are built into the os...no need to install separate drivers. My first thought is that you are about to reinstall Windoze...it may be that your drivers or some other critical system files went south on you. Good night and good luck.

 

problem 2 nosound
legacy sound system (yamaha)
drivers are there but not enabled?
can i replace the sound system
non yamaha

 

Hi. Am I to understand that your sound has quit working since Windows stopped recognizing the two drives? If so, you may have had something cause a driver to become uninstalled. Again, sounds like a reload of Windows is next on the menu. You ask if your existing Yamaha sound system can be replaced, or something like that. If reinstalling the driver is not the correct fix, and your sound card is crapped out, and you have an open pci slot inside the case of your pc, sure, it is possible. However, realize that, if your existing sound adapter is integrated (consists of a chip mounted on the motherboard), you may have to disable it before being able to activate a new sound card added into an expansion slot. Only the manual for the motherboard would tell you that kind of stuff. I am willing to bet that, if you formatted your hard drive and reloaded Windows, followed by your drivers, you would be back in operation. Good night and good luck.

 

Check your device manager.... if it shows anything under CD Drives, uninstall the drives, and reboot and Windows should pick 'em up and re-install 'em. Hopefully. If that doesn't work, maybe trying powering down, unplug the PC from the power outlet and disconnect the CD drives from the mobo and from the power and reboot. After Windows is loaded up, power down again, unplug PC from the power outlet again, reconnect the CD drives and reboot and see if Windows picks 'em up that way. I'm sure someone else mentioned it, but check your BIOS and see if the CD's are recognized there. If so, and Windows still doesn't see the CD's then you have some kind of major software issue. Try putting a bootable CD in (Windows CD for example) if that boots as it should, then you definitely know that it's not a hardware problem... if all else fails (BIOS doesn't see the drives) swap out the IDE cable with a new 80pin cable. Then repeat the above steps if needed..... As for the sound: same general steps. Check the device manager, etc... Or just pull the sound card (it's probably on older ISA card anyway) install a new sound card and the drivers. New sound cards can be had for under $30 for a decent 6 channel suround sound card....

hopperdave2000

 

thanks for the input
to clarify the sound issue is unrelated to the missing drives
originally ran win 98 upped to sec edit
was reformatted once before and told that an instance of win 98
is still on the comp.... every once in a while on reboot or in safe mode
it will come up it has sound. ive taken off the lagacy sound system
off presently because of a resource conflict in which the device manager
says the drivers are there but not enabled its confusing to this inexperienced geek as far as the drives are concerned everest sees them but there moved up as e and f ?????? any ideas are appreciated
ive looked in the bios and the drives are there ? device manager shows
a problem with system board ext for pnp bios a mess indeed confusing
back to the shop perhaps
pc