DVD And CDRW not installed correctly

[Arkaine23]

Maybe this belongs in operating systems...

Ok I have a Sony DVD drive and an external Iomega USB CDRW. I had both of these working a few days ago, and the DVD has been working for over a month. Then all of a sudden neither drive appeared under "my computer" and Win 2k put a "!" by both devices in the device manager. I don't have manufacturer specific drivers, only windows drivers. And like I said they worked a few days ago...

The only things I can think of that might have caused this problem are 1) my roommate set up file sharing on our home network, 2) we blew the circuit breaker twice by drawing too much power.

I've tried checking the IDE and USB connections for these drives. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling them in the device manager. I've tried unplugging them and then plugging them back in. I'm starting to get mad! All that's left is to format my OS partition and reinstall Windows, unless any1 here has a suggestion or two...

[-Exi|e-]

Here's an idea

Shut down your computer, unplug them, restart with the drives still unplugged. Go to device manager, remove them, reboot. Shut down you computer again, plug in both your drives and let windows acknowledge the devices and......ummm....everybody lives happily ever after?:D Seriously though, give this a go and see what happens.

[RED Hot Machine]

Along the same lines as Arkaime23's suggestion try running the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard in control Panel.

Let us know how you get on :D

[Arkaine23]

I tried it both ways- uninstalling and rebooting, and unplugging, uninstalling, and rebooting. Both ways it installs them and asks to restart, but they still were not in "my computer" and they still had "!"'s in the device manager. "Error code 31. Windows cannot load the drivers for this device." x2 I did this at least 5 times each way. I also opened her up and checked the connections a couple of times.

Format and reinstall of windows fixed it though. <sigh> Only the 4th time in 2 months I've had to do that. Good thing I keep 3 partitions on my 40 gig HDD. I think maybe this problem started after an extreme overclock on my GF2 Ti, maybe.

Thanks for the advice ya'll.

[gsxr750]

I do use W2K also.

since u mention about setup a network.
Do u log in to windows as an administrator?
if you not the access might have been block.
just try login to windows as admin. and remove check from sharing.

Good luck.