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First post, by Stormkoko934

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Hello. I'm having a problem where the cd drive doesn't open and isn't recognized by windows. Everything is connected and it just blinks an orange light. My pc is a gatewayGP7-550. Any help would be appreciated.

Reply 1 of 15, by Jorpho

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Is it recognized in DOS, or on your BIOS boot screen?

If the tray mechanism is faulty, you might still be able to open it up by sticking a paperclip into the tiny hole in the front of the drive.

Reply 2 of 15, by cyclone3d

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Is this a drive you just hooked up?

Are you sure the data cable is plugged in properly? Pin-1 on the cable needs to go to Pin-1 on the drive and Pin-1 on the IDE controller.

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Reply 3 of 15, by Stormkoko934

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Jorpho wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:18:

Is it recognized in DOS, or on your BIOS boot screen?

If the tray mechanism is faulty, you might still be able to open it up by sticking a paperclip into the tiny hole in the front of the drive.

the bios says there's a cd rom device but dos and windows doesn't recognize it.

Reply 4 of 15, by Stormkoko934

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:22:

Is this a drive you just hooked up?

Are you sure the data cable is plugged in properly? Pin-1 on the cable needs to go to Pin-1 on the drive and Pin-1 on the IDE controller.

it worked fine then stopped working. none of the wires were moved.

Reply 7 of 15, by cyclone3d

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It's either dead then or you have a bad connection. Try unplugging and plugging back in the data and power cables with the machine turned off of course.

Could also be the power supply not supplying the correct voltages. How old is the power supply? Does the motherboard BIOS report the voltages?

It could also be that there is a rubber belt in the drive that broke and the drive thinks it is not all the way closed.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 8 of 15, by Stormkoko934

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:51:

It's either dead then or you have a bad connection. Try unplugging and plugging back in the data and power cables with the machine turned off of course.

Could also be the power supply not supplying the correct voltages. How old is the power supply? Does the motherboard BIOS report the voltages?

It could also be that there is a rubber belt in the drive that broke and the drive thinks it is not all the way closed.

might have been the rubber belt. i'll order a new cd drive to see if it's just the drive that's the problem.

Reply 9 of 15, by Jorpho

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Stormkoko934 wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:24:

the bios says there's a cd rom device but dos and windows doesn't recognize it.

What exactly is the BIOS saying? Do you have the IDE channel on auto-detect?

What are you doing to try to get the drive working in DOS?

It seems very unlikely that there could be a mechanical fault if the computer generally fails to recognize it at all.

Reply 10 of 15, by brostenen

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Check Master/Slave jumpers...

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

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Reply 11 of 15, by BitWrangler

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Yah you can exercise all the connections to exorcise all those oxidation demons.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 12 of 15, by Stormkoko934

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Jorpho wrote on 2021-05-31, 14:08:
What exactly is the BIOS saying? Do you have the IDE channel on auto-detect? […]
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Stormkoko934 wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:24:

the bios says there's a cd rom device but dos and windows doesn't recognize it.

What exactly is the BIOS saying? Do you have the IDE channel on auto-detect?

What are you doing to try to get the drive working in DOS?

It seems very unlikely that there could be a mechanical fault if the computer generally fails to recognize it at all.

the bios settings shows it as an atapi cd-rom drive but the phoenix bios when looking at the details of the gateway doesn't show it.

Reply 13 of 15, by BitWrangler

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You mean it doesn't show in windows device manager or what?

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 15 of 15, by Jorpho

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I really don't understand, but:

Stormkoko934 wrote on 2021-05-31, 05:25:

it worked fine then stopped working. none of the wires were moved.

If you didn't do anything, then the drive is probably just kaput and it's kind of pointless to speculate further if you can't get another drive or try it on a different machine.