32 bit upgrade loses CD/DVD, tried everything else

[Dr Evil]

Back ground

I am running a Dell Inspiron 1525 that came pre installed with Vista, but without a disk. The Vista seemed to corrupt so I decided to upgrade to 7. I had to first install my old XP OS so that I could upgrade (unless I was wrong in my assumption). So I went from a corrupt Vista OS that was doing the circular auto repair on startup and would not budge from that, to old XP, to Win 7 ultimate. All were loaded via the CD/DVD drive. But, the drive does not show up in device manager or anywhere else.

Bios - Fixed Bay Device = DVD+/- RW, but there is no such drive listed any where else. Module Bay Device = Enabled

Device manager - I have an ATA 0 and ATA 2. No IDE drives, only SATA. No CD drives stuff is listed anywhere.

*It will boot from the CD/DVD currently, only on startup*


Things that I have tried

Repair with Win 7 disk - no joy, same thing

Flashed the BIOS - strike

Reinstall CD driver - I went to Dell's website and down loaded the correct driver for my CD/DVD drive. When I try to install it I get the message that I "either do not have Administrator permission or the hardware is not discoverable."

Removed filters- There was only one filter, the upper one. I deleted it, restarted, it repopulated the upper filter and the problem did not resolve.

Disabled signature enforcement

Disabled CD/DVD integrity checks

Physically removed and reinstalled CD drive

Win 7 auto repair - no help there

Deleted ATA 0 and ATA 2 - tried to see if it would recognize the drive after deletion and restart.


This is as far as I have gotten with help from my friends. When I updated the OS I had to manually install all the drivers, if that matters.

What say yous?

 

[electrotune1200]

So you did an upgrade installation and not a clean install? If you haven't performed a clean install I highly recommend you doing so to avoid current and potential future difficulties.

Here's a helpful tutorial on how to do so http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html?filter[2]=General%20Tips

 

[gregrocker]

Try cleaning the HD then clean installing Win7.

Boot Win7 DVD, select Repair on second screen, click through to Recovery Tools, open a Command line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for Windows 7 disk)
clean all (zeroes HD, takes awhile)
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
format
exit

Now boot back into Win7 DVD, Custom install to prepared partition.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

 

[seekermeister]

Try cleaning the HD then clean installing Win7.

Boot Win7 DVD, select Repair on second screen, click through to Recovery Tools, open a Command line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for Windows 7 disk)
clean all (zeroes HD, takes awhile)
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
format
exit

Now boot back into Win7 DVD, Custom install to prepared partition.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

I had not thought to use the repair function in this manner to prep the drive for installation...I like it. I hope that I will remember it if I need to clean reinstall the OS on one of my rigs.

EDIT: Does not this procedure also allow for setting the size of the partition?

 

[valtonray]

unscrew the drive and remove it. start windows and let it load fully then shut it back down. reinstall dvd drive restart windows. you let it detect new hardware install drivers. this should work. you may need to use the administravive tools in the cp to enable it. this isn't really that uncommon of a problem when installing 7 onto a laptop. possibly a bug but one of those solutions should fix it

 

[yowanvista]

Try a system repair

 

[dmex]

Its possible your drive's firmware is outdated and allows the bypassing of DRM and/or copy protection restrictions (RPC1 firmware support was dropped) that can cause Windows 7 to block the drives usage completely.

Have you tried a clean install as an upgrade install usually causes these type of problems?

Steven

 

[dfs4]

you mean CD/DVD drive doesn't appear in my computer? if so, I have had the same issue. I have dell 1545 and I had a problem similar to this and I had to reinstall vista from CD and afer that I had to reinstall windows 7 on another partition and I couldn't see them anywhere either. It would only appear after I would mount the windows 7 rc .iso files on virtualclone drive, only then the cd/dvd drive would show up in my computer. but for some reason now they are there. some weird dell issue I assume because I am planning a clean install of windows 7 on C drive once I burn the installation files on a cd/dvd.

 

[dfs4]

btw did you have the same issue where dell would get stuck into a loop starting up to a memory or disk test page? mine would restart endlessly to a black/white and colored memory/disk test page and after several tests the dell call agent concluded the Hard Disk was faulty(according to the error code) and he said he was going to send me a new HD. but at the last minute I said I would try reinstalling vista from CD opposed to doing a repair because he wanted me to send the faulty HD back to them and I wasn't comfortable with that. but it has been a few weeks now and I figure I still could call them and tell them to send that hard drive.

anyways did you have the same problem with the memory or system or disk test page appearing on startup?