no drive letters in "my computer"..help!

[DAMAILMAN]

new here so, if i mess up, someone tell me....

...ok, i have a dell optiplex 210L with 1gb+ ram and 160gb sata hd. i have formatted the drive with a low level format and have created a fat32 partition of 10gbs to install win ME onto to play specific games. (i will install xp-home on remaing free space after i solve this problem).

.."me" went in ok however, i have no icons in "my computer" for my dvd reader drive and dvd/cd-rw drives...i have done everything i know to do and no avail.

...obviously, i need my disc drives to work so that i can (hopefully) install the drivers for my computer as well as get rid of the "messages" in hardware device manager.........any suggestions?......thanks for any reply!

 

[sandmanwn]

you do realize that you can install XP and have it run programs like win ME did.

-you can "right click" on any executable,
-go to "properties"
-go to the "compatibility" tab
-there will be a check box that says "run this program in compatibility mode for:"
-you can then select windows 98/ME and the program should run just fine.

 

[evongugg]

Check device manager to make sure they are showing up there.
Then try to go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Computer management->Disk management. See if they show up there and assign a drive letter by right clicking on the drive.

 

[ZozZoz]

90% of the time, the problem with hardware is either an excessive connection or a missing one (old proverb).

unplug and replug all IDE/SATa cables. make sure there are no master/slave conflicts. jumper drives if needed.


b.t.w. - reminded me of the rumour I heard: Win ME does not properly map memory above 256 megs. I tend to believe its true, coz when I had in installed for a short while on my old rig back in 2001 - It somehow required only 256 megs of space for suspend to disk, while the system had 512. go figure.

 

[evongugg]

The first place to check is the Bios. If they are showing there, a drive letter can be assigned in case ME forgot to...
If the drive are not showing in the Bios, the power lead could be disconnected as well as the data lead. The jumpers are probably correct since they were working before.
Ultimately a drive could be dead, probably not.

 

[DAMAILMAN]

..thanks for the reply...however, i still need to get me installed and useable.

 

[DAMAILMAN]

......thanks for the reply......the assocoated drive letters do not appear in "my computer" or anywhere else for that matter....and we are talking about win me....

 

[DAMAILMAN]

90% of the time, the problem with hardware is either an excessive connection or a missing one (old proverb).
***thanks for the reply, however, when i had xp hone on this, it worked fine and all connections are tight. secure, and have not changed from the initial configuration when it all worked when i had xp home in it.

unplug and replug all IDE/SATa cables. make sure there are no master/slave conflicts. jumper drives if needed.
***see above


b.t.w. - reminded me of the rumour I heard: Win ME does not properly map memory above 256 megs. I tend to believe its true, coz when I had in installed for a short while on my old rig back in 2001 - It somehow required only 256 megs of space for suspend to disk, while the system had 512. go figure.

***i don't believe this is true as i have had win me working on systems in excess of 500mbs..

thanks for the reply!

 

[DAMAILMAN]

The first place to check is the Bios.
***thanks for the reply..that is the first thing i did as i have to check a box there that said spomething about allowing older programs to be used in the computer. i have everything else set up ok as far as i can tell...i think if the bios was crapping out, it too may have or could have affected win xp home, but it did not...

If they are showing there, a drive letter can be assigned in case ME forgot to...
**not too sure now (see above)...

If the drive are not showing in the Bios, the power lead could be disconnected as well as the data lead.
***n/a, see previous posts

The jumpers are probably correct since they were working before.
Ultimately a drive could be dead, probably not.

thanks for the reply.

 

[DAMAILMAN]

LAST UPDATE;
IT TURN OUT THAT THE CHIPSET IN THIS P.O.S. DELL IS NOT CONDUSIVE TO ANYTHING BELOW WIN 2000 SO THEREFORE, ME WILL NOT FUCTION (ALTHOUGH I GOT IT TO LOAD) ON THIS PARTICULAR CHIPSET. I WISH TO THANK EVRYONE WHOM ASSISTED ME IN FINDING THE ROOT PROBLEM. THANKS AGAIN! (ps, sorry for the caps!...grin).
(thanks again mr. mudcrab!)....