Hi Mart,

Scandisk ran with no problems in safe mode so that puts my worst fears to
rest!

Starting from the WinMe floppy went OK.
The first result was CDR101 : Not ready reading drive E.
Second CD actually read its contents OK.
Put the first one in again an hey presto it showed its contents.
Put in another CD and got the same error message again.
Then at another try all was OK.

I then restarted ME and tried the Scrabble CD again. It hung for a while
with the activity light pulsing slowly. I was on the point of giving up when
the CD drive sprang to life and the game loaded.

So does this mean the CD drive is on the Blink, literally, or is there any
further treatment I can give it ?

Thanks very much for your spot on diagnosis so far.

Richard.
..
"Mart" wrote in message
...
Taking the second point first, try running Scandisk in Safe Mode as 'other
background running processes' can often cause Scandisk to recycle in
Normal Mode.

To boot into Safe Mode :-
There is an 'Official' (documented) MS method for WinMe - as per a search
for 'safe mode' in Help and Support Centre will find - by holding down or
'stabbing at' the Ctrl or the F8 keys as the pc boots from cold.

A further couple of methods are by using the Shift key as above, or when
your machine is running in Normal Mode, run msconfig.exe and on the
General tab, select Advanced and check the 'Enable Startup Menu' box. (Not
forgetting to disable it when you've finished g)

Regarding the CD's being unable to be read issue - the CD-ROM *might* just
be failing and *probably* unrelated to the Scandisk issue. You need to
check-out the CD-ROM in Real Mode DOS.

To 'see' it in Real Mode DOS, Boot, using your WinMe Startup (floppy) Disk
in the A: drive.
Select option 2. Start computer with CD-ROM support.

Let the screen information scroll until you eventually see a line which
should report a drive letter for the CD-ROM - but note that it may not
necessarily the same letter as you would expect to see in Windows.

For example, you may see the CD-ROM becoming the E: so the screen should
show:
Drive E:= Driver MSCD001 UNIT 0
Your CD-ROM Is Drive E

When the boot disk finally settles down, you will be presented with an
A:\ prompt.

Now put a (data) CD into the CD-ROM and at the A:\ prompt, type "E:"
(no quotes and note the colon after the letter E) Then Press Return.

Now, at the E:\ prompt, type "DIR /P" (no quotes and note the space) Then
press Return.

You should see a listing of the CD contents. - Try several CD's

Come back with your results. Give EXACT errors reports - if any.

Mart


"Hawkins" wrote in message
...
Neighbour complains that she can no longer load her Scrabble CD. I
manage to get it to start via the Run box but it will not start from its
normal shortcut and other CDs cannot be read.
I started to do some long overdue housekeeping and when I got Scandisk it
would start, recycle many times but would not progress to the end.
Is this a indicator that the hard drive is going south or should I do
some other checks to be certain ?

Richard