Dell 7500 manual Look and Listen, Cleaning Diskette Drives

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Windows 98 on your computer, you should already have virus-scanning software) to check for and remove any viruses.

Clean the disc with a soft, lint-free cloth and isopropyl alcohol.

Clean the drive as described in the next subsection, “Cleaning Diskette Drives.”

Try another CD or DVD title.

NOTE: Because of different conventions currently used in the industry, not all DVD titles work in all DVD-ROM drives.

•Enter the Setup program as described in Appendix B, “Using the Setup Program,” and verify that IDE Controller is set to Both.

•Run the IDE Devices device group as described in “Running the Dell Diagnostics” found later in this chapter.

•Refer to “Troubleshooting the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive” found later in this chapter for further troubleshooting information.

If you have hard-disk drive problems, perform the following checks:

•For Windows 98, run the ScanDisk utility by clicking the Start button, pointing to Programs—>Accessories—> System Tools, and clicking ScanDisk.

•For Windows NT, run the error-checking utility by opening the property sheet of the affected volume(s) and clicking Check Now in the Error-checkingsection of the Tools tab.

•Run the IDE (ATA/ATAPI) Devices device group as described in “Running the Dell Diagnostics” found later in this chapter.

•Check the settings on the IDE Configuration submenu of the Setup program as described in Appendix B, “Using the Setup Program.”

Cleaning Diskette Drives

You can clean a diskette drive using a commercially available cleaning kit. These kits contain pretreated diskettes to nonabrasively remove contaminants that accumulate during normal operation.

If the kit does not contain instructions, insert a pretreated diskette into the drive and turn on the system. After 20 or 30 seconds, remove the diskette from the drive.

NOTICE: Do not attempt to clean drive heads with a swab. You may accidentally misalign the heads, rendering the drive inoperable.

Look and Listen

Looking at and listening to your computer is important in determining the source of a problem. Look and listen for the indications described in Table 3-1.

If the problem is still not resolved, see the next subsection, “Setup Options.”

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