tman70

I think I have finally got the CD writer and DVD rom to work. I decided that nothing else had worked so I decided to do a Master Boot Record. Having never done that before I was a little scared, but it must have worked. I can now burn a cd at 48x and open it in control panel. I can also open all of the test cd's I have made in the last few days, which I couldn't before. I also D/L WM Player Classic and can now watch my DVD Video's. I haven't yet figured out how to get WM Classic to automatically open when I insert the DVD. But I will.

The Gateway BIOS shows: master as 48x12 slave as Toshiba DVD ROM SD-M which is right. In doing some googleing I found something that said I should have these files in c:\windows\command to run cd-roms. They are: atapicd.sys oakcdrom.sys Idecd.sys I don't have these files. Could this be why these drives only partially work? You guys are smarter than me, so should I have these files?

When I can get a cd to burn I wait until it finally shows screen saying "do I want to save ISO". I have just tried to burn a cd as a test and and after almost 5 minutes it said burn process completed successfully at 40x. Then a seperate screen popped up saying the same thing. I clicked "OK" and then waited for process to end. After a 10 minute wait I clicked the x in the right hand corner and when it asked if I wanted to save the ISO I said NO. I tried to open it in the drive and cannot.

TT_75, Both drives have DMA enabled.

Thanks martymas, I have tried that and removing from device manager, restarting and nothing works. Everything shows good in device manager and control panel. I have the ATAPI CD-R/RW 48x12 in now. I have bought new Memorex CD-R's and I can Burn files to the CD even though it takes about 6 minutes. But I cannot open it from the CD drive. Bought a cheap $2 DVD Movie to try in the Toshiba DVD-Rom. It won't show up. On my son's new computer I can take the same CD and it opens fine. The DVD plays fine also. Could I have a corrupt file somewhere the reason the drives don't work?

My drives are set just as you have posted. D/L DeepBurner but can't get it to let me drag and drop files. I can get to cdroot, but not beyond. I just tried some new Maxwell cd-r's and it will start to burn but then quit. The Fuji and the Maxwell both work on my son's computer. Anything else I can try?

Thanks TT_75 and deaf_girl I check the jumpers and settings first thing. I used the ASPI Check, got a red screen and it said I did not have ASPI, so I D/L and ran ForceASPI17 and then ASPI Check gave me a green screen to say I now had it. I have three cd/w drives and this is what I get when I put them in this computer: Mitsumi CR-48XATE-------Nero can only be used with the recorder it has been bundled with. Nec CD-Rom Drive:28D----Nero will not recognize the drive. ATPI CD-R/RW 48x12------Please insert the medium to write to, Medium required for the compilation CD-R/RW. The ATPI CD-R/RW 48x12

My son had these put in about two years ago and never could get them to work and just gave up. Now that I have got his new computer with Xp running he has given this one to me. It has w98se on it for now. I can check the Device Manager and the drives show up with no yellow marks. Where would I find drivers for these if that is the problem?

I now have my son's computer working but I am having problems with the CD Drive & DVD Rom Drive. Here are the specs: Gateway Essentiale 500c MITSUMI CD-ROM FX4821T!A MITSUMI CR-48XATE I can't get Nero 5.5.8.2 or Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.1 to burn a cd. Neither will reconize the drives. Should I get Nero 6.6 or Nero 7.0?

Thanks--- I thought it might have been automatic, because I am not getting any ballons like that.

tman: See if this is what you want: Windows XP Transfer Wizard Scroll down until you see images of how to use with XP CD or use clicking Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/File and Transfer Wizard etc....... Barb Thanks Barb and Shanenin I got everything transfered and now it is up to him to fine tune it back to his settings. I can't find the "activate windows" in the start-all program menue. I was going to activate his XP. I guess I will have to call it in. I now have his Gateway and am trying to find out why it keeps knocking out the hard drive. But that is for another post. Thanks

Everything seems to be running good. SP2 downloaded and ran without any problems. The question I have now is "How do I transfer his files from his backup W98se HD to the new XP HD"?

Thanks everybody for all the info. I am going now to the store and buy some cd's and then get started trying to learn how to use XP. I knew that it needs more ram. He can buy some more later after he learns how to use XP. But I will be the one that has to install it. It's nice to be needed. LOL This reminds me of when I used to work on my car with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver and someone would ask me what I was doing. I would say "just tinkering" and then there would be several heads under the hood helping me "tinker". Better be careful here or I will be telling my age. Again Thanks. Wi

Thanks Liz, That is what i was looking for. I haven't paid too much attention to posts here on XP since I didn't have it. I did remember that there were some problems downloading SP2 and updates. Don't know if this has SP2. It only says XP Home Edition on the specs, so I will assume I will have to download SP2. I think I will wait until tomorrow so I can get some cd's from the store to download it to them like "shanenin said in his post. I also have his backup H/D with all his files and programs on it. If I am reading things right there should be no trouble transfering everything to the new d

Thanks Bubba Bob, I really was just wondering about downloading updates for SP2?

My son has been having too much trouble with his Gateway W98se computer the last few days. According to him I'm taking too much time trying to fix it. So today while he was off from work he went out and bought a Compaq Presario SR1012NX. Since it was refurbished he got a good deal on it. Here are the specs: Compaq Presario SR1012NX Refurbished Compaq Computer AMD Athlon®XP Processor 3000+/2.10GHZ 256MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM memory 80.0 GB Ultra DMA Hard Drive CD-RW Drive 48x/24x/48x DVD-ROM 16x NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics/ 64MB shared V.92 data/fax modem/10/100 network interface 2 IEEE 1394 ports

Thanks Liz, I was really concerned if I would have any problems with my bios as it is only updated to 1999. I think maybe sometime next month my son and I will go ahead and get XP home. I don't think there will be any trouble on his computer. As for mine if I have any problems I can always find another computer on e-bay that will meet my needs for the amount of money I have to spend. After all that is where I got these two and they work good.

I think that 256 mb is all this board will take(2x128). That was one reason I was wondering abouit being able to run xp. The other is I can't find a newer bios than 1999. Since I have two of these Dell Millennium's and thanks to e-bay I believe I have less than $500 in both of them. I was going to try and find a M/B to fit in this case. Sometimes I have seen M/B's on e-bay with cpu's fairly cheap. But not knowing anything about M/B's never gave them much thought. Don't know if I will still be here come 2011, so will worry about vista if and when. Thanks for the replys. Any other thought will

These are the specs for my Dell Millennium computer: Processor 450 megahertz Intel Pentium II 32 kilobyte primary memory cache 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Main Circuit Board Board: BCM Advanced Research, Inc. i440BX-W977TF Bus Clock: 100 megahertz BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 4.51 PG 10/22/99 256 Megabytes Installed Memory 30.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity I think I need to go to another Motherboard in order to have XP Home run good, as I believe I will be at the low end of resources. Not too interested in gaming at this time. What would be another Mothe

Maybe a corupt MBR (Main Boot Record). Can you boot to safe mode? If so this most likly is not the case. you can fdisk /mbr and it will rebuild it in MS/DOS mode. I'm just guessing that this is the cause it has been many years since I have used a 98SE machine. You sure he would not like a nice install of linux on that Box? It is an option (IMHO). Preston Hi Guys, Appreciate your replys. Sorry to take so long to reply, but I have managed to fix the problem. I had a 13 gig hd that just had a copy of w98se on it, so I hooked it up as the master and installed "Partion Magic" on it. Wasn't worrie

My son's Gateway Essential running w98se freezes on the splash screen when you try to bootup. This started after I downloaded the new update for Avast. I can use ctrl-alt-delete and reboot but it still freezes on the splash screen. I have used F8 to go to safe mode and it still freezes on splash screen. I updated all of his programs-AdAware, Spybot, Sun Java and ran them and Avast to have a clean system. I then removed old restore points and made a new one on Go-Back before I D/L Avast update. I have tried to use Go-Back to before I D/L new Avast update, still freezes on splash screen. What do

After reading that, I was going to purchase one for myself, but..... If you are looking at the one for 39.99 with free shipping, it is SATA. You do not have that kind of a connector on your motherboard. Make sure you find a drive that is IDE. They have quite a few of those for $40 plus $5 for shippping. Yes, that was the one. I got in a hurry and did not read all of the information. Thanks. Oh well, I have had good luck buying HD's on ebay at cheap prices and like TT_75 we don't need anything larger than a 40 at this time. So I am going to try and convince them the "oldman" does know what he

OK TT7_5. I have finally read the part about barriers and admit I was lost. Since this is an Intel 810 chipset, am I understanding this Accelerator 2.3 right? If I download it and run it now for their Wme it will make the computer a little faster and will allow up to a 137 gig HD. Then when they go to xp I will have to download and run it again. NewEgg has a 40 gig HD for around $40. I don't know how big they should go on HD. As I said before XP is all new to me since I only have experience with W98se and Wme. Thanks for advice.

I think you may scare him off with that price. $90 xp home oem(at newegg) $55 120 gb harddrive(at newegg) $30 memory(that price may be less or more. I use used memory from ebay all the time) $175 total none the less, a shop will probably tack on another $100 - $150 to that price Thanks for the information Guys. PC Pitstop test says there is no problem upgrading to XP on this Computer. A couple of programs will have to be upgraded for XP. I believe I can save them some money by doing it myself. It takes a while to let them digest the facts and act on my suggestions. If I have any trouble I