Just had my PC into shop to have power supply replaced. Due to configuration of tower, the tech had to take everything out in order to remove the power supply unit. Am now home but PC is failing to recognize the DVD drive or the Rewrite drive. Have a call in to the tech as this may be an issue where something needs to be done inside the tower. Since he is outof the office right now, thought maybe someone could steer me as to something I could do about this matter from my end if possible. My DVD drive has at times in the past refused to be recognized with same message - please put disk in drive - when the disk is IN the drive! Appreciate any ideas/suggestions. My tech is such a busy and disorganized man that I often have to wait for service. May have to change techs due to this but he is sooooo good - really hate to do that since good techs are very hard to come by here in the desert.

I'd look inside the case and see if the cables to the drives have come loose. If the lights on the fronts of the drives light up when you boot, the power cables should be OK. But the IDE cables could still have shaken loose while the PC was in transit.

Make sure you ground yourself against a metal part of the case (to discharge any static buildup) before sticking your hand inside the case. Reseat the cables leading to the CD drives.

If you're NOT seeing the lights on the front of the drives, the power cables to the drives may be loose - or they may be bad, since they come directly from the power supply. Check ***here*** if you need some pictures to guide you.

The tech I have walked me through checking everything inside the case - still having problems and seems to be getting worse! PC hangs up all the time everywhere, drives just not recognized and when I boot up - take abut 10 minutes for my desktop to make an appearance! So tech is coming tomorrow to look into the matter. Something really strange going on here - I have defragged, done thorough disk scan, scanned for viruses all to no avail. So we shall see what tomorrow brings. Thanks for your site you sent - very interesting and your help Jenny. Sure is a bummer when you can't play gmes!!! This may give me the push to try to unhook things from XP and rehook to 98 and try to fire it up!!!! Will do so with crossed fingers and toes:)

XP is much more stable than 98. I have XP with SP2 installed and never have any problems at all. Are you sure that your PC is adware and spyware free? These can wreak havoc with everything!

Rusty

I have run scans for spyware and adware and they all come up zero! My PC was working fine before I took it in to have the power fan changed - bearings were wearing and it was making a noise. When I brought it home, the troubles began. So hope the tech tomorrow can straighten it all out. Can you recommend two good sites for adware and spyware progams, Friedmonky? I hear some are good and some cause more problems than they are worth.

Well, hopefully your tech will straighten this out for you. As for adware and spyware detection and removal, I use Ad-Aware. Have used it for a long time and it has never failed me. Just like anything else though, some people love it and some people don't. If you would like to try it out, it is free to download and free to use. It is not something that runs constantly in the background. It only runs when you run it. You'll be surprised what it will pick up if you try it.

Ad-Aware download

Rusty

I suspect there is a problem with the new power supply. You may have got a lemon. Anyway, since the tech is coming over, let him worry about it.

Are your drives configured correctly? Master slave, check the jumpers and that the IDE cables are plugged into the correct controllers on the motherboard. Also, check drivers in device manager. Kay

Thanks FriedMonkey - have downloaded Ad-aware and will give it a try. Is one program sufficient? Does Ad-aware also detect spam or are ads and spam pretty much the same thing. Always confuses me.

and Wait3264 - strange you should mention jumpers because this is what the tech found and told me and what do you think of this also Jenny - tech found that two jumpers were "switched, incorrectly installed" and he seemed to think it had been this way from day 1 when the PC was built. He also said just his pulling the power supply and installing one would not have done anything to the jumpers. What he could NOT explain was why I did not have the same problem before with the incorrect jumpers as I just now had (could not log on, it hung up at the logon windows logo, could not see disk drives).

This tech while an excellent tech is very problematic in that he has personality problems which are expressed in extreme business disorganization and inability to follow through on his committments on time to his to customers He did not charge for this extra call and would not take any money. Makes me wonder if he did make some kind of an error and was just too embarrassed to admit it. Just do not know enough yet about the situation and jumpers.

I was having problems off and on with my PC as some GBers can attest because ever so often one would say "you surely have a lot of problems on your PC". So maybe the jumper situation was the cause?

Just wish I really knew more at this point about the inner workings of PCs, jumpers etc. so I'm ready for a lessons- anyone?

Ad-aware detects spyware.
Spam is unwanted email - ads for Viagra and get rich quick schemes and stuff that fill up your email mailbox.
Spyware is unwanted advertising programs that can sneak into your computer while you're browsing the Net. Spyware can cause advertising popups to appear at inconvenient times, like when you're playing a game. Besides crashing the game, spyware uses up system resources.

It sounds like the tech fixed your computer. If your drives had the jumpers set up wrong, I'm surprised it functioned as well as it did. Hopefully it will work a lot better now.

Got it clear now re the diff between Spam and Spyware. Yes, am up and running but still it unclear to me how the jumpers could have been wrong from the git-go and I functioned as well as I did, then after he worked on my PC - it all went haywire around the jumpers. I do not know enough about PCs and all the technology inside of them so can't understand the logic of it. I know PCs can be very touchy, illogical, different, and just downright ornery at times. Just wish I had better support here in the desert for tech help than I do. Not only do I miss the game playing and GB site when PC is down but I have my school work on the PC and it really hangs me up when it goes down during a semester!

You should have 2 IDE controllers on your motherboard. Primary and secondary. Your hard drive should be plugged into the primary controller and the other drive into your secondary controller. If you have more than one optical drive (say CD ROM nad DVD) then you will have 2 drives on one cable (the wide flat cable) The hard drive should be by itself unless you have more than two other drives. On the cable with two drives one must be master and one slave. The newer drives come with something called Cable Select where the drives configure themselves. If you look at the drive itself, there will be a diagram for the jumper configuration. Also it is possibe jyou have a bad IDE cable or the cable is in backwards. It should be plugged in where the red stripe is closet to where the plug from the power supply goes in.
Kay

Kay - how great to have your explanation! At this point it is all Greek to me but have copied it out and when am off PC plan to take the back off and look around inside according to your description so I can familiarize myself with my PC innards:) The more I can learn and maybe do myself, the more I will be able to do things for myself. Thanks so much for your help and if I may will remember you if I need lesson two?

I would be glad to help. Most of what I have learned has been by trial and error. I use the internet alot resaearching any problems I have to find how to fix them. If you are having a problem, there is a really good chance that someone else has had the same problem and been able to fix it. I also have been taking classes at the local community college for computers. The final exam for my last class (computer upgrade and repair) was that each student was given a computer with 10 problems and had to detect all of them. I know that in my computer at home, one of the cords from my power supply doesn't work, because at first I thought it was the drive that didn't work
If both your optical drives are on the same IDE cable, and neither is being recognized, it would make me think it is the cable, your tech may have bent a pin connecting them.
Kay