Which One of You Bastards Stole My CD and DVD Drives and Where Did You Hide Them?

[wolf]

My DVD and CD drives are missing. I mean, I know right exactly where they are, they're right there, up near the top of my computer tower, a cupholder, and a handy backup in case the upper one gives way under the load of my customary SuperBigGulp.

It may come as a surprise for folks to find out that I can go for months without actually using the darn things. I play PC games in spurts, sometimes intently focused on them and playing every single night, other times just poking around in some adventure area or another. I have a clear preference for games that don't require having the CD in the drive, though, since I have a certain lack of key organizational skills that result in my misplacing games and such for months at a time. Sometimes years. I was going through a box in a closet and found a pile of 5-1/4" floppies with some really great old games and a full copy of SPSS statistical package on them. They've since returned to the closetamoeba. I expect I'll find them again, four or five years from now when I'm looking for my heels.

But, this past weekend I really, really had to install some new software.

Really.

A lot.

I put the install CD into the drive and ...

Nothing.

Not a damn thing happened.

No whirring noises, and certainly no autorun.

I know that sometimes autorun can be cranky, so I went to "My Computer" with the intention of clicking directly on the drive name and nudging it into working.

Yeah. Sure.

Under "Removable Storage" the words A: Floppy Drive mocked me.

No E: no F:?

What the hell?

Obviously, they were right there. I hadn't played with them. I make a point of not touching the insides of my machines, so I knew I hadn't done anything. I hadn't seen any strange error messages or warnings crop up. I tried to think back ... when was the last time I remembered seeing my drives? End of October, that was it! I had burned some CDs (approved copies of a local band's music) for a friend. What had I done since then? Couldn't really remember.

Rebooting, the geek's first line of defense, didn't do any good. Warm, cold, and with a .40 pointed at the P4 processor. No joy in Wolfville.

The Hardware Device Manager listed the devices, but both were marked with that nasty little yellow exclaimation mark. I did not greet it's presence with the same joy that once accompanied the "Interjection" song from School House Rock, that's for sure. I used a few interjections, let me tell you, as I carefully uninstalled the drivers, rebooted yet again, and watched those cute little XP thought-balloons come up above the taskbar advising me that new hardware had been successfully located and that they were being reinstalled. Ah, the excitement!! Ah, the disapointment when I checked "My Computer" only to find my lonely A: drive.

I wept, I tell you. Rarely does the imperative to install software strike so strongly. I thought of a great workaround, though, one that would allow me to investigate this problem at my leisure, but allow me to install the software anyway. I am just that smart. Off to the manufacturer's website I go, to get the download bundle that's always available ... except for this particular newly released product.

Ah shit.

Back to problem solving ... reading through a lot of drivel written by teenagers who can't bother to distinguish between a letter of the alphabet and a pronoun.

Luckily, there is no problem that someone else has not had before, and has then carped about online. I love the internet.

I still don't know how it happened, but the problem was actually fairly easily resolved, once I got over my longstanding hesitation to fuck with the registry directly and follow these relatively simple directions. I had to anesthetize myself with a couple of shots of Jack before I started though, and I was in a cold sweat the whole way through.

So finally, I got my software installed.

Oh, what was I so anxious to run?

You see, I got one of these things, and I wanted to play with it right away.

The story itself isn't all that great, but what I really wanted to do was brag about the new toy.