A few hours ago, my computer froze in the proccess of downloading something
to my 36gig slave drive. i thusly shut it down. when i restarted it, my drive
was gone and i had a new **cd drive**

i need some help to turn it back into a cd drive, even if it does mean i
lose all of the information on it. (although if there is a solution that
means i can keep my data, then that would be really nice.)

Thanks

firstmateirongut wrote:

> A few hours ago, my computer froze in the proccess of downloading
> something to my 36gig slave drive. i thusly shut it down. when i restarted
> it, my drive was gone and i had a new **cd drive**
>
> i need some help to turn it back into a cd drive, even if it does mean i
> lose all of the information on it. (although if there is a solution that
> means i can keep my data, then that would be really nice.)
>
> Thanks

Wrong icons appear for drives - per MVP Ramesh, delete the file named
autorun.inf from the drive's root folder, and then reboot. You may need to
right-click on the drive icon and choose "Open" rather than
double-clicking.

If that doesn't help, either boot with a Linux Live CD to get the data off
the slave drive or put the slave drive into another working computer
(either by temporarily slaving it or by putting it into a USB drive
enclosure). Once the data is off the drive, format it.

At the target computer, before you reattach the slave drive remove it from
Device Manager and then shut down. Attach the drive and restart so Windows
can find it and enumerate it properly.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

so, ok i can't even open the hard drive, because my computer is quite
insistent that it is a cd drive, no matter how i open it, it asks for a
cd.... so there is no way to even format it.. tried using DOS, but to no avail

"Malke" wrote:

> firstmateirongut wrote:
>
> > A few hours ago, my computer froze in the proccess of downloading
> > something to my 36gig slave drive. i thusly shut it down. when i restarted
> > it, my drive was gone and i had a new **cd drive**
> >
> > i need some help to turn it back into a cd drive, even if it does mean i
> > lose all of the information on it. (although if there is a solution that
> > means i can keep my data, then that would be really nice.)
> >
> > Thanks
>
> Wrong icons appear for drives - per MVP Ramesh, delete the file named
> autorun.inf from the drive's root folder, and then reboot. You may need to
> right-click on the drive icon and choose "Open" rather than
> double-clicking.
>
> If that doesn't help, either boot with a Linux Live CD to get the data off
> the slave drive or put the slave drive into another working computer
> (either by temporarily slaving it or by putting it into a USB drive
> enclosure). Once the data is off the drive, format it.
>
> At the target computer, before you reattach the slave drive remove it from
> Device Manager and then shut down. Attach the drive and restart so Windows
> can find it and enumerate it properly.
>
> Malke
> --
> MS-MVP
> Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
> FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
>
>

firstmateirongut wrote:

> so, ok i can't even open the hard drive, because my computer is quite
> insistent that it is a cd drive, no matter how i open it, it asks for a
> cd.... so there is no way to even format it.. tried using DOS, but to no
> avail

Then as I already said:

>> If that doesn't help, either boot with a Linux Live CD to get the data
>> off the slave drive or put the slave drive into another working computer
>> (either by temporarily slaving it or by putting it into a USB drive
>> enclosure). Once the data is off the drive, format it.

DOS cannot see NTFS-formatted drives.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ