cdr101 not ready reading drive

[Spencer]

I have Windows XP installed on my pc and I recently formatted because it was infected by virus and had lots of problems. Now, I am getting a error message for my floppy drive which used to work fine before which reads something like this:

CDR101:Not ready reading drive E
Abort,Retry,Fail

I have also set the default settings in Bios but again the same error and I also downloaded some boot up disks and changed the boot up sequence but still I am getting the same error. Can anybody help me out please? Thanks

[ApPy10]

Did you try to get this bootdisk setup from here for your operating system. Have a blank floppy disk ready and run the program it will create a boot disk with universal cdrom drivers.

[T.J.]

I think that the errors on the C: drive does needs to be solved before proceeding to any futher installation, that shouldn't affect the CD drive. I assume the machine was (more or less) working prior to the restoration attempt? Are you booting from the recovery CD or are you using a floppy disk to start the computer? Generally the 'not ready' error comes from a malfunctioning (or dirty) CD drive or damaged CD.

[TEcH GuRuJI]

Have you tried the 'slow boot up' speed option listed in your BIOS, if not then first try that. If it's booting from a floppy then how much slower can you get? The option you describe is generally to compensate for hard drives that don't initialize quickly enough. If you're booting from a 98 bootdisk, no matter what option (1 or 2) you choose at the boot menu (other than the readme help file, 3) you will get a ramdrive created. If you have only one physical hard drive with one partition, the ramdrive will be D:. Your cdrom will be E: (and, depending on the boot disk,) up to Z:. If the hard drive is not recognized properly in cmos the ram drive will become C: