My Laptop and I-The Battle Continues!

[N1SQB]

My laptop and I have a love / hate relationship. I wont even go into the issues I have had to solve and how I have had to solve them. Its worse than a soap opera, believe me. Anyway, the latest problems are two fold. First, I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate on my Compaq CQ60-210us. Now when I start the computer, it tells me to choose which version of Win 7 to start up. This obviously means that it kept a copy of my old non-working install. I think I forgot to format the drive before doing the new install. Is there a way to get rid of this old version so I dont have to have another step in the start up process? Second issue is that the laptop is not seeing the internal DVD drive. The drive has power but will not eject on its own.( I used a needle to pry it open). So, how do I go about getting the computer to see the drive? It does not show up on the device manager but it is visible and enabled on the BIOS!

Manny

 

[Astrak]

Sounds like you need a new DVD drive, if not there might be something loose in there. If the BIOS is seeing it then Windows will see it. Are you Windows installs on different partitions? You may be able to go into the Disk management and extend the partition of the Windows partition you want to use.

 

[N1SQB]

I dont believe I need a new drive. I just did the fresh install yesterday using that same drive and it never failed once. I see the laser is working, and the drive has power to it. It has to be software related. I went into disk management. All that is there is the C drive partition and a "reserved" partition of 100mbs.

Manny

 

[KB0VWG]

Msconfig

Type in msconfig into the search option and that will bring up a window with a few tabs, Need to select on the windows boot option that you dont want and remove it, I wil take caution when you do this to make sure you dont remove the operating system you just installed, On my pc it wont let me remove the operating system that is running but I cant say that for your situation. The old OS might not be in there but your computer is still looking for it or it might not have removed boot sector of that hard drive that portion of windows is stored on. So once you remove the correct old OS startup then you need to restart the pc and it should load normally without having those choices. Just take caution doing this to be on the safe side or if not you might have to reinstall over again. the cd rom might need a special driver from compaq, I would get online to the compaq website and chat with a tech and they might be able to give you a link to the proper driver.
I do pc repairs on the side and my fulltime job is a helpdesk tech with a local phone company.
Hope this helps
73's
Michael

 

[Astrak]

Type in msconfig into the search option and that will bring up a window with a few tabs, Need to select on the windows boot option that you dont want and remove it, I wil take caution when you do this to make sure you dont remove the operating system you just installed, On my pc it wont let me remove the operating system that is running but I cant say that for your situation. The old OS might not be in there but your computer is still looking for it or it might not have removed boot sector of that hard drive that portion of windows is stored on. So once you remove the correct old OS startup then you need to restart the pc and it should load normally without having those choices. Just take caution doing this to be on the safe side or if not you might have to reinstall over again. the cd rom might need a special driver from compaq, I would get online to the compaq website and chat with a tech and they might be able to give you a link to the proper driver.
I do pc repairs on the side and my fulltime job is a helpdesk tech with a local phone company.
Hope this helps
73's
Michael

Yep, in MSCONFIG click boot tab and next to the one you're running it says Current OS. I do find it weird that you would need a special driver for a DVD ROM drive, but who knows.

 

[N1SQB]

Type in msconfig into the search option and that will bring up a window with a few tabs, Need to select on the windows boot option that you dont want and remove it, I wil take caution when you do this to make sure you dont remove the operating system you just installed, On my pc it wont let me remove the operating system that is running but I cant say that for your situation. The old OS might not be in there but your computer is still looking for it or it might not have removed boot sector of that hard drive that portion of windows is stored on. So once you remove the correct old OS startup then you need to restart the pc and it should load normally without having those choices. Just take caution doing this to be on the safe side or if not you might have to reinstall over again. the cd rom might need a special driver from compaq, I would get online to the compaq website and chat with a tech and they might be able to give you a link to the proper driver.
I do pc repairs on the side and my fulltime job is a helpdesk tech with a local phone company.
Hope this helps
73's
Michael

THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH! Ity worked! As it turns out there is a little message next to one of them that says"current OS/ Default OS so it was easy as pie. Now, I tried calling Compaq prior to posting on here. I like to exhaust all options before getting on here and asking. I got frustrated because they just wanted to sell me an extended warranty for $49 before even making any attempt to help me. Sorry, on a limited budget right now. can't justify blowing money on a laptop right now. So I am still stuck with the cd/dvd thing. I tried updating drivers, looking in their support/download area for my particular model, nothing...

Manny

 

[KB0VWG]

Try a chat session with them

I do my best not to ever call them because half of the time you cant understand what they are saying, I usually start a chat session and they send me a link to the correct driver, Did your pc have VISTA in it before?? If it did you can find a vista driver and it should work for win 7.
73's
Michael

 

[Astrak]

Software & Driver Downloads Compaq Presario CQ60-210US Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

Don't know if any of those would help, they have a couple DVD drivers there to enable DVD/Blu-Ray playback.

 

[N1SQB]

I went on this site, I will try it again just in case I overlooked something! Thanks for posting it though!

Manny

 

[Astrak]

They also seem to have a firmware update for an optical drive on that site.

 

[N1SQB]

They also seem to have a firmware update for an optical drive on that site.

Yeah, I saw that! I downloaded the update, but it could not "see" an optical drive to update!

Manny