First off, as much system info as I can think of: I am running a gateway desktop with pentium 4 2 ghz processor, 40gb quantum fireball internal hdd, 8gb internal western digital hdd, 160gb simpletech external usb hdd, windows XPpro version 2002.
The story goes like this: I was running my computer just fine (or as fine as a pc running windows can ever be
(next time I'm getting a mac)) about two weeks ago without the 8gb or 160gb drives, except that I was constantly running out of space
(I'm sorry, I'm a download *censored*. bitlord is heaven). So I had several old, unused computers lying around, and I decided to start adding spare parts to my main desktop. I added the 8gb, and I removed the cd drives, which I had been having a lot of difficulty with for as long as I'd owned them, and replaced them with a phillips cdrw800 series, and an hp cd-writer plus 8100i. Now my system absolutely does not recognize either drive.
They do not appear on My Computer, nor in the Device Manager, and after running a search for uninstalled hardware, windows recommended I uninstall a list of drivers, audio management, and other such cd-drive related software, saying the hardware was no longer installed. I have the driver and firmware update for the phillips, but I am missing the driver for the hp. This shouldn't matter unless XP's generic drivers are incpompatible. I can rule out hardware failure, I have tested them on other computers. I know a decent bit about computers, and generally what I don't know I can figure out, but this one has me completely stumped. :-? I'll keep trying, but any input or assistance would be wildy appreciated. Thank you for any and all future help, and thanks just for trying. And just generally thanks for even reading. If I had money I'd donate it to this site, but alas I find myself rather morbidly broke. But I suppose thats a subject for another forum.
I guess I never realized how much I enjoy emoticons.
