For some reason my CD ROM suddenly stopped working. It has power (light is on) and is picked up in Explorer but when I try to access it I get a "device not ready" (or similar) message. Whether a coincidence or not I also can't get the computer to detect my Zip drive (parallel port) either. If I connect the printer to this port it works fine. I know the Zip is okay as it works on my laptop.

The only thing I can think of is that when setting a password in BIOS the other day I may have accidentally changed a setting, although I don't think I did. For the record the system is only a few months old -- P111 850 running Windows 98se
Any ideas gratefully accepted. I should say I am a bit of a newbie so please try and simplify any ideas.

Mark Warren, ,

Power is getting to the drive, but the data connection is the one not working here. it could be the cable has simply come undone. Check this. But this wouldn't explain the ZIP also misbehaving. Sounds like a driver problem. Open Control Panel and look in Device Manager. See if the CD-ROM appears without an exclamation mark. If it does have one, you can try clicking the Reinstall Driver button to force Windows to fix itself. Likewise with the ZIP. The ZIP may just be a case of the drivers not being installed properly. Try installing them again.

Philip Moore