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Please help;

I have a "Barbie PC" (Intel BP810 MB, Celeron CPU) marketed for Mattel by
Patriot Computer in Canada several years ago. The CD stopped reading, so I
replaced it with a different drive. Worked for a while (app. 6 months) but now
won't read again. I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts, but it
too stops reading CD's after a while as well. Tried replacing the battery &
cable in both, but still won't work. PS seem good, too. Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks,
Bill

"Bill Barker" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Please help;
>
> I have a "Barbie PC" (Intel BP810 MB, Celeron CPU) marketed for Mattel by
> Patriot Computer in Canada several years ago. The CD stopped reading, so I
> replaced it with a different drive. Worked for a while (app. 6 months) but
now
> won't read again. I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts,
but it
> too stops reading CD's after a while as well. Tried replacing the battery
&
> cable in both, but still won't work. PS seem good, too. Any ideas, anyone?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill


get a better quality cdrom

the machines you bought for parts more than likely have the same
(evidently low quality) type

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:15:13 -0600, Bill Barker <> wrote:

>I have a "Barbie PC" (Intel BP810 MB, Celeron CPU) marketed for Mattel by
>Patriot Computer in Canada several years ago. The CD stopped reading, so I
>replaced it with a different drive. Worked for a while (app. 6 months) but now
>won't read again. I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts, but it
>too stops reading CD's after a while as well. Tried replacing the battery &
>cable in both, but still won't work. PS seem good, too. Any ideas, anyone?

You would have been better served by buying a better-quality CDROM instead
of another entire "Barbie PC". The parts in pre-packaged, low-end budget
PCs are likely marginal at best.

Use a Win98 boot floppy and see if your CDROM works from DOS. If so, you
may have a software conflict or other configuration issues in Windows.
That seems to me to be more likely, given that both similar drives failed
in the same fashion. Check Device Manager and see if your drive is
configured properly.

If you determine that it is indeed a hardware issue, you can by a decent
CDROM or DVD drive for less than $40 retail.

If you need additional help on this issue here, more detail would be
helpful. How does the drive fail? How was it installed in the computer
(master/slave/csel, IDE 0/1, etc), which OS you're using, ad inf.

--
Robert B. Clark (email ROT13'ed)
Visit ClarkWehyr Enterprises On-Line at http://www.3clarks.com/ClarkWehyr/

Tried replacing the battery &
> >cable in both,

I think those CD-ROMs are not standard....he mentioned batteries....????

"Robert B. Clark" <> wrote in message news:...
> On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:15:13 -0600, Bill Barker <> wrote:
>
> >I have a "Barbie PC" (Intel BP810 MB, Celeron CPU) marketed for Mattel by
> >Patriot Computer in Canada several years ago. The CD stopped reading, so I
> >replaced it with a different drive. Worked for a while (app. 6 months) but now
> >won't read again. I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts, but it
> >too stops reading CD's after a while as well. but still won't work. PS seem good, too. Any ideas, anyone?
>
> You would have been better served by buying a better-quality CDROM instead
> of another entire "Barbie PC". The parts in pre-packaged, low-end budget
> PCs are likely marginal at best.
>
> Use a Win98 boot floppy and see if your CDROM works from DOS. If so, you
> may have a software conflict or other configuration issues in Windows.
> That seems to me to be more likely, given that both similar drives failed
> in the same fashion. Check Device Manager and see if your drive is
> configured properly.
>
> If you determine that it is indeed a hardware issue, you can by a decent
> CDROM or DVD drive for less than $40 retail.
>
> If you need additional help on this issue here, more detail would be
> helpful. How does the drive fail? How was it installed in the computer
> (master/slave/csel, IDE 0/1, etc), which OS you're using, ad inf.
>
> --
> Robert B. Clark (email ROT13'ed)
> Visit ClarkWehyr Enterprises On-Line at http://www.3clarks.com/ClarkWehyr/

In article <>, says...
> Please help;
>
> I have a "Barbie PC" (Intel BP810 MB, Celeron CPU) marketed for Mattel by
> Patriot Computer in Canada several years ago. The CD stopped reading, so I
> replaced it with a different drive. Worked for a while (app. 6 months) but now
> won't read again. I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts, but it
> too stops reading CD's after a while as well. Tried replacing the battery &
> cable in both, but still won't work. PS seem good, too. Any ideas, anyone?
>
Get a decent CDROM drive or better still, a DVDROM drive.

Don't buy a Samsung or Creative Labs one.

--
Conor

Hi. This is my friend, Jack ****, and you don't know him.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:15:13 -0600, Bill Barker <> wrote:

>I bought another of these PC's for replacement parts, but it
>too stops reading CD's after a while as well.

__________________________________________________ _______

Before tossing it out, try cleaning the lens. I use compressed air, but
there are special CDs with little brushes on them too. I've never used
the latter, but they probably would do the job.

I live in a dusty area (desert) and have to clean mine about once a
year.

--
Bill, W6WRT

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 21:23:08 GMT, "JAD" <> wrote:

>Tried replacing the battery &
>> >cable in both,
>
>I think those CD-ROMs are not standard....he mentioned batteries....????

I assumed he meant the CMOS battery, which wasn't relevant to his problem
so I ignored it.


--
Robert B. Clark (email ROT13'ed)
Visit ClarkWehyr Enterprises On-Line at http://www.3clarks.com/ClarkWehyr/