Hi Judith, It is difficult to tell from afar, but it may be as simple as opening up the box and cleaning it out, remove the wires from the CD-ROM and put them back in the exact same place.  There may be dirty contacts. It would be a good idea to review the inside of the system and make sure the drives are connected properly... http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml You could also check in the device manager to see if there are any device errors... It could also be that the drive is just no good anymore... sorry ! Has the system been working fine up until now ??? Regards, Kevin. On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Judith <judith.bn@bigpond.com> wrote: > > Hi Listers, > > My son is using a very old pc with W.98SE and the CD Rom > Drive suddenly stopped recognising disks.  The error message > is Drive not accessable, device not ready.  The O/S is W.98SE > > The drive shows up in My Computer and opens and shuts okay. > > Any help much appreciated.  Baby steps please. > > Judith > > > > :-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~: > > If it's not immediately apparent, be sure to mention how your query relates to family research. > > Please don't post promotions of commercial products or services, and avoid mentioning prices. > > :-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~:-~: > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COMPUTERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -- K. Ross kr5927@gmail.com