CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory) are a sign of the times to come. They use a lazer to read information off the cd.
The speeds of them is limitless, and with each cd holding 650meg of information and with the newer motherboards coming out nowdays in which you can tell the computer which drive to boot from, the variations are limitless.
They can be of many makes and transfer rates, the newer ones are IDE so they run as fast or faster then a standard harddrive for very quick data recovery. They can be connectted to either the IDE port(the same as the HD) or threw the soundcard.
Check you doc's for which type yours is, not all are IDE compatable. If you are running one on the same cable as a harddrive make sure the cdrom is set to secondary, otherwise your system will hang trying to figure out which is the one to boot from.
If you are running threw a sound card make sure you use the proper port for your make the most common are IDE, Sony, Panasonic and Mitsumi. There is usually a setup program that came with the card to enable the proper port for your cdrom.
Make sure to handle the cd's properly, hold them by the edges and do not get finger prints or scratches on the shiny surface, if you do you will most likly end up with read errors. If this happens try cleaning the cd with a proper cd cleaner kit that can be bought at most music or computer outlets.
Scratches cannot be fixed. If you are having problems accessing your cd rom make sure the drivers are correct and loaded properly, check the doc's that came with it for the proper command lines for the config.sys and autoexec.bat. If still no luck make sure the jumpers are set properly, try playing a sound cd, if you get sound then you should be able to get data.
If you don't get sound try cleaning the cdrom with a cdplayer cleaner, it looks like a cd but underneath there is a small brush to clean the lazer pickup lens.
If still no luck, place a cd in taking note of the position it is in, close the tray, what a few seconds and then open it again, try this a few times, if the cd is in the same position, check the power connections to make sure it is getting power, after try it again, if it still dosn't spin then, remove the cable from the back of it and try again, if still nothing the motor is toast and needs to be replaced
If the cd does move then try replacing the data cable making sure to line up pin 1 with pin 1, pin 1 on the cable has a red trace on it.
Make sure you are using the right drivers for your cdrom and the most latest available.
Keep the cd's and drive free of dirt, dust and liquids.
**** NEVER REMOVE THE COVER AND LOOK INTO THE LAZER EYE, THIS CAN CAUSE BLINDNESS OR VERY IMPAIRED VISION ****
Make sure the resources are available for your drive, some models do require an IRQ ( usually set to 15 at the factory, but somtimes can be changed by jumpers either on the controller card or the cdrom itself).
If you are running 2 or more cdroms make sure you set the jumpers for designating the drive,(0,1,2,3)
There are now on the market cdrom's which you can write back to the cd to make it possable to back up your system onto a cd for timeless referance. The other advantage of these is you can set up a complete operating system, copy it to the cd then boot from the cd leaving your hard drive free for nothing more than saving files.
This also gives the ability of running many diffrent platform systems on the same machine by just booting up on a diffrent cd matched to the system needed (eg: Dos, Win95, Win3.1, Unix, etc)
Although new to the market, prices are coming down quickly.
