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Compaq Persario 5820 CD-ROM Drive weirdness

ScanDisk

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Joined
Apr 1, 2017
Messages
701
Location
Niagara Falls, Canada Eh?
So, I got a free Compaq Persario 5820 from my local computer repair shop today.

Even though it has a Celeron and has a Windows 98 sticker on it, it seems the previous owner Upgraded it to XP (which works, but is very slow).

Anyways, it seems to almost all be working, except for the CD drive.

The issue with it is weird, it powers on, the LED does blink on boot, and even Windows does recognize it.

however it does not want to open when the button is pressed, I tried the paper clip in the hole as well, and nothing. I tried setting the BIOS to defaults, still the same thing. I event tried pressing the button multiple times in a row to get the tray to open but nothing happened, does anyone know anything else to try?

I mean, I would've just replaced the drive by now because I do have some spare CD drives, but the way these things are designed you cannot access half of the drive cage without taking out the side panel that the motherboard is on, so it is not easily serviceable.

any other ideas that could save me from having to replace the drive?
 
Edit:

I did the paper clip again, but much harder, and it has done the trick, the drive is opening and closing like normal, and is playing an audio CD now, I think all is good. Sorry for the waste of time. First time I did the paper clip method, didn't know I had to press really hard.
 
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It'd probably be a good idea to take the thing apart and grease all of the tracks and gears, it was having trouble opening because the lubricant dried up.

Many optical drives use small belts between the motor and gear train, which can snap from too much stress. They also rot over time and can break, making the drive not open.
 
True, it kept getting stuck again and again, and being unreliable. Though it's shelved for now, as I can't figure out how to remove the drive, given that half of the drive cage is covered by a metal panel that the motherboard itself is also attached to, and it covers pretty much everything, as I said before, not easily serviceable.

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Ok so I figured out how to move that panel aside, to get to the drive cage, so the only problem now is one stripped screw I will have to work on tomorrow, and after that I should be able to replace the drive just fine.

I will report back after that.
 
Ok.

I managed to replace the drive, and finally Install 98SE on it, the bootable 98SE disc worked like a charm.

However for some reason even though the computer recognizes the drive obviously, Windows does not, it is asking me to point to the Windows 98SE CD to install drivers for many different things, but, when I browse the CD drive is not there at all.

I've never had this happen, but I know the drive itself works, as like I said, the computer booted off it and installed Windows off it too.

Anyone got any pointers?
 
Okay, so I copied the contents of the disc onto the hard drive and installed Windows that way, it all works.

device manager says there is an issue with the secondary IDE, but it says the best driver is already installed, and that there are no resource conflicts.

I guess it needs a special driver then?
 
I tried disconnecting the zip drive, which was also on the same IDE cable, after that it worked, the CD drive was recognized and worked.

So what I did was I tracked down the IomegaWare software and installed it, then reconnected the zip drive, but upon bootup the IomegaWare software says it did not find any zip drives. Also now the CD drive isn't recognized by Windows again, and device manager shows the yellow "!" by the secondary IDE again.

I don't know what's happening to be honest, when I first got this, the warranty seal wasn't broken, so I assume everything is set as it should be from the factory.
 
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