no cdrom...........

hi, i`m in a bit of a fix, i was given a dell computor, system optiplex gx1 450l bios version ao6. the problem is it does not recognise a cdrom for me to do a fresh install of windows. i`ve gone into bios and set it to auto and it did find it and i installed win98se with a lot of missing files, and while on one of its many restarts it disappeared all together. while i was in windows i went into my computor and the cdrom was not there even though i had just installed windows. what do i need? a bios flash or ide controllers?

just remembered, i did a swap around of the hd and the cdrom on the mother board making cdrom master and the bios and startup disk found it, so it seems i have a problem with the secondary (sorry cant think what its called) plug on the motherboard looks like bios is not recognising it. if thats the case then i have no idea what to do, except for a bios flash?

many thanks and i hope it sort of made sense.

Are your basic jumper settings connectors correct on the mobo?

i.e.: Hard drive jumpered as "master" connected to end connector on ribbon cable. Cable connected to IDE primary connector on mobo.

CD-ROM jumpered to "master",connected to end connector on it's own ribbon cable. Other end of ribbon cable connected to IDE Secondary connector on mobo?

Bios set to auto detect drives?

Just some thoughts...

yep, i`ve swapped cables, jumpers, cdrom, everything........i think but no joy.

andymac,

Are the jumpers on the CDRom set to Master?

spaceman

I would try connecting the CD to other connector on the ribbon and jumper it to slave. Mine works that way.