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IBM Aptiva 2176-C31 having trouble with Drivers or CD drive

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thegenerallee86

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I have an IBM Aptiva 2176-C31 I am trying to install Windows 95 but I am having issues either with cd drive or need some drivers to get it to work properly. I've been able to get it to install a couple of times but whenever I try to read CDs sometimes it works fine and other times Windows 95 freezes for a few minutes before opening the CD folder window? Also I know on the first install it said something about incompatible drivers and I do install the DOS CD rom drivers which are not specifically for that drive but have worked on my other computers CD drives?
 
Could be that it's on a borderline fail state. What specifically is the drive model/make?
 
If you want to use the drive in Win95, do not install dos drivers. It will force real-mode access (16-bit) from within Windows, which is slow and unstable. If a CD is very hard to read for the drive (either because of the CD itself or the drive needing maintenance) and Windows needs to rely on real-mode drivers, there is no multi-tasking while the drive tries to load the directory. That is your freezing that happens.

Get rid of the dos drivers and give the lens inside the CD drive a clean.
 
Timo W. said:
If you want to use the drive in Win95, do not install dos drivers. It will force real-mode access (16-bit) from within Windows, which is slow and unstable. If a CD is very hard to read for the drive (either because of the CD itself or the drive needing maintenance) and Windows needs to rely on real-mode drivers, there is no multi-tasking while the drive tries to load the directory. That is your freezing that happens.

Get rid of the dos drivers and give the lens inside the CD drive a clean.
Click to expand...
That's what I'll do then
 
I've many times thought I had a dead optical drive, and a good dismantling and thorough clean was all that was needed to bring them back up to life, so do not underestimate the power of cleanliness :D Take it a part (be careful, these things have a LOT of hinges that love to break), give it a good clean with compressed air, clean the lens with isopropyl alcohol (carefully), and give it a go before you completely reassemble it.
Try it with original CDs, CD-Rs and also audio CDs.
 
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