At 12:27 AM 02/01/2000 , you wrote:
>I recently put together a system with a friend of mine out of spare parts. It is an
>older computer for his mom to use for basic internet and other basic functions. It is a
>486dx2 66Mhz w/64mb ram 1.2G hard drive. We had a copy of win 98 for his computer we
>thought we would put on it so we could have a nice easy to use o/s. The computer went
>though most of the set up process fine. Until the end where it stop reading the cd-rom
>drive. It was looking for different files that we found on the win 98 disk on another
>computer and put them on a foppy disk and loaded them when asked for them. And now
>windows starts fine, runs fine and shuts down fine. In fact i am using it now writing
>this. the only thing is i can not get it to read the cd-rom. We had the driver and tried
>loading that and now the driver is on the hard drive and it loads when win is started
>but when you select the drive nothing happens. Sometimes the whole system locks up and
>other times it just says "error reading drive d:" HELP! we have been working on this
>system for weeks now and need help to move on to something else.

I have experienced this when using older CD Rom drives, units that were on
the shelf as take-outs from upgrades on other systems.   Just with the symptoms
you report, the answer is rather simple:  The CD Rom drive has gone bad.

This is not what you want to hear, but like all components in a PC, most
especially components with moving parts, they have a limited life span.  CD
Rom drives go bad very regularly and for no apparent or particular
reason.  They just wear out.   You probably can find a drive at a local
used PC shop for very little expense, but it will still be a used drive.  Another
option is to buy a new drive, put that drive in your personal system and
swap out your old drive to this system you built from bits and pieces.

Sorry I cannot offer better assistance.

    Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

                         PCBUILD's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>