Problems & Support for this product

• Drive works fine, but Bios won't recognize it for boot purposes
Question by gtoman12345, Sunday 7th of September 2008 17:46
My original DVD reader CD RW was on the fritz so I replaced it with this drive and all was well until I had to format my computer and tried to boot from it.  I’ve even updated my bios to the newest version Dell has on their website and it still won’t let me boot from it.  I’m not sure if there is anything more I can do to get bios to recognize it so that I don’t have to go through the hassle of swapping to the old one every time I need to boot from CD/DVD ROM.  The hardware ID looks funny and I think this may be what’s causing the bios to not recognize it but I’ve never come across anything like this before so I’m hoping someone can help me.  The product was listed as OEM so that too could be part of my problem. 
Answer by Arachne, Sunday 7th of September 2008 18:01
If, as you say, the Hardware ID looks funny, I'd recommend you swap the flat IDE cable out for a fresh one.

BTW, welcome to the forum
Answer by gtoman12345, Sunday 7th of September 2008 18:20
I guess I should have mentioned that this is in a Dell Inspiron 700m which is a laptop so there's not cable to swap.
Answer by Arachne, Sunday 7th of September 2008 18:23
Yeah, I realised that after I posted.

Hopefully other members will have some additional advice, but it does sound to me like a dodgy IDE cable if it's being incorrectly identified in the BIOS (weird characters or incorrect drive name displayed).
Answer by gtoman12345, Sunday 7th of September 2008 18:37
It’s not so much weird as it has a bunch of underscores before any digits are shown. I did some more searching on other online forums and found that this is a problem with this drive and not the laptop. One poster said that he was able to correct the problem by sending the drive back to TEAC and having them flash it for cable select but that was a number of years ago so I’m hoping that I can now download the flash and flash it myself.
Answer the question right now!


 
Answer a question? Login first, or become a member here!