Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 July 28

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July 28

Windows XP moniter problem

I actually have had this problem for a couple of years now, but now it seems to have reached a stage where it can't fix itself. My moniter screen occasionally puts up a message in a blue box stating "No Signal Analog 2", before shutting down (by which I mean just the moniter, not the computer itself). I usually have to restart the computer to fix this, after which it works fine, until I turn it off, in which when I try to turn it back on it may do this again. Now though, I have restarted my computer 10 times already, and the moniter is still not displaying anything other than the message before promptly shutting down. Is there a problem with the wires or is the processor somehow damaged? Is it possible to fix this problem without the need to replace my moniter? 72.235.221.120 (talk) 00:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that the problem may be with the monitor (or possibly the monitor lead) rather than the computer. I'd try borrowing a monitor and cable from somewhere, to see if this fixes it. If it works with them both try the new monitor and the old cable, and the old monitor with the new cable. This should help isolate the problem. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This sounds like a cable problem to me. Make sure the cable is securely attached to the computer (and the monitor if it's a detachable cable, some aren't). AvrillirvA (talk) 11:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there an English <-> Archaic English translator anywhere?

I would like for it to work a LOT like Google Translate. The idea is to type in "Where are you?" and after clicking on a translation button, it spits out "Where Art Thou?"

So where is a program (browser-based, NOT downloadable, thank you) that allows me to convert my text to Shakespearean English, Middle English (unsure whether that is one-and-the-same with Shakespeare's), Old English, and other types of historical English I might not know about? Thanks. --70.179.165.67 (talk) 02:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I prithee, kind Sir, for what end doest thou seek it? Methinks such artifice may be beyond the capabilities of those who dwell in basements ^cellars, and instruct the marvellous mechanical mills to which you allude. Or perhaps these learned gentlemen have not the incentive, nor the necessary stipend, to pursue such arcane quests.AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

For I shall venteth mine furies on the journals I keep on what is known as the tome of thine countenances.

The point here is that if I "encode" some of my literature in a more archaic form of our beloved tongue, only I and a select few shall understand it. Some of what I'd love to write isn't intended to be seen by everyone, but a few others plus myself (which is why I don't simply save them as private drafts.)

Also, there is some serious self-entertainment value to be had from turning everyday modern convos into how they could have sounded centuries ago. Moreover, these shalt help me recite how to talk to anyone in my next trip to a Ren Fest. --70.179.165.67 (talk) 11:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

For keeping literature (semi-)secret, wouldn't some form of Encryption work better? There is plenty of free, easy-to-use software around for encrypting files. If you want to learn about an archaic form of English, I would think a better idea would be to start with, say, the Early Modern English article, and have a look at the references. Even if an automatic translator does exist, you probably can't rely on its accuracy. 130.88.73.71 (talk) 13:32, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

What I type upon this key-board be not what you seek; but at this link you'll find merriment that echoes the question you have put before us. Twill occupy you for hours as you peer at yonder text window. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Name of an algorithm / problem

I start with a list of basic units, let's call them a, b, and c. I want to build a particular string (ie, abcabcacbacbacaaaa) out of these units by combining them. I can use any previously built combination of units (if I had previously created abca and cbac, I can put them together to form abcacbac, or cbacabca, or abcaabca, etc). What is the algorithm that will try to find the fastest way to build my string? 166.250.74.153 (talk) 04:12, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me make sure that I understand the rules. Is it true that: (1) in every step exactly two copies of previously generated strings get concatenated to form a new string, and the two constituent strings may be the same; (2) the answer being sought is the shortest sequence of steps that would produce the target string? --98.114.98.196 (talk) 04:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. 166.250.74.153 (talk) 04:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

With the simplest definition of "step" then a string of length n symbols will always need n-1 steps to build it, no matter what route you take. For example, there are various ways of building abca:

((a + b) + c) + a

a + (b + (c + a))

(a + b) + (c + a)

(a + (b + c)) + a etc.

where + represents concatenation, and you start with the innermost set of brackets. Each route take 3 steps, because it has 3 + signs. You can formally prove that it always takes n-1 steps by induction on the length of the string. However, the problem becomes more interesting if, having built one copy of a sub-string, you can re-use it multiple times at no extra cost - in this case abab, for example, can be built in 2 steps rather than 3 by building the sub-string ab first. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

See Kolmogorov complexity. This is a very old problem that is still unsolved. You are asking how, if given a string of characters, can you get the most optimal reduction into substrings. A common way to estimate how optimal it could be is to use common file compression techniques that compress by removing redundant sequences, such as bz2. -- kainaw™ 12:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This isn't Kolmogorov complexity because the compression isn't fully general. I think you can solve this with a slightly unusual dynamic programming algorithm: at each concatenation, you calculate the cost of the string as the sum of the costs of the substrings but omitting the costs of any duplicated subsubstrings in the trees (which can be found efficiently with a set data structure). --Tardis (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

How do you apply dynamic programming to this problem? When you decompose an optimal solution to the optimal solutions of two subproblems, the optimal solution solutions of the two subproblems are not unrelated. (If you do find a trick to get around that problem, do post your solution.) In any case, the problem can be solved by brute force "efficiently" (at least by the standard use by theoretical computer scientists). --98.114.98.196 (talk) 02:38, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

(The brute-force method that I thought would work "efficiently" turns out to be incorrect.) --98.114.98.196 (talk) 12:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It turns out that this is unsolved: with just one letter it's the addition chain problem. --Tardis (talk) 22:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

First Programing Language

Hi all!

Here i am going to ask you people that which one is the easiest programing language for a person who is completely un-aware of the programing

world. I am very interested in computer programing so you people please advise me which language i choose first which the easiest

If you provide me a website which is only for new comer in programing ,i will be very thankful to you all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.44.128 (talk) 11:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Learning to program isn't about learning a specific language. It is about learning the general programming constructs such as variables and control structures. Every programming language from FORTRAN and COBOL through the latest fad like Scala and Go has these constructs. What you want is ANY programming language for which you have a computer that allows you to write the program and run it as well as a book that shows you how to program. Pretty much every textbook I've seen at the bookstore about programming comes with a disk that contains an editor and compiler for the language the book teaches. But, if you insist on asking which is "easiest", all you will get is a list of which programming language each user uses most often. For me, it is a toss-up between C/C++ and PHP. -- kainaw™ 12:39, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It depends on why you're learning to program, your level of mathematical knowledge, and what sort of programs you want to write. List of educational programming languages covers some ideas. In a computer science department (which must match the needs of industry and the requirements of teaching a theoretical understanding of computer science) you might start with Lisp, because it teaches many important theoretical concepts, or C++, because it's widely used and incorporates many features of other programming languages, or Java, which is widely used but a little simpler than C++. In schools, BASIC was formerly a very common language for younger pupils. Logo (programming language) is a simple but very limited starting language (it's not a general purpose language but can be used for certain tasks).

Python is generally reckoned to have a simple, regular structure that makes it good for people without much experience of programming, and it is widely used by scientists and other people who require numerical processing. Visual Basic is common in business as an easy-to-learn language for Windows systems. Certain languages are generally used for certain tasks, so if there's a particular thing you want to program, you should choose the appropriate language: e.g. C++ for PC games, Java for Android applications, and maybe PHP for websites. NB: This list is not exhaustive, and other languages may be equally appropriate. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend the combination of PHP and HTML, or either Java or C#. PHP probably has the smallest learning curve, but might not be fantastic at debugging for beginners. Java and C# are both very modern languages which are both readable and practical for a career. They also both have their respective Integrated development environment (Visual Studio, Eclipse), which is an ideal tool for development, testing, and debugging. TheGrimme (talk) 15:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

But HTML is not a programming language. JIP | Talk 16:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I suggested both because in most cases, PHP is useless without HTML. TheGrimme (talk) 18:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I find PHP to be a great prototyping language (without any HTML - just command line). I can throw together quick code to solve some problem and test the algorithm. Then, when I like it, I have no trouble quickly translating it to C. The overall development time is much faster than doing all the work in C from the start. -- kainaw™ 16:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I recommend starting with a language that's (relatively) simple and powerful, like Python or Racket. Don't worry about what language will be most useful in the future; knowing more languages makes you a better programmer, and starting with a heavyweight language like C++ or Java requires learning a lot of trivial things just to get started. Paul (Stansifer) 17:02, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I like REBOL. It can do in a few words what takes pages in other languages (pyth...), and the tutorials are good. See http://www.rebol.com/tutorials.html The Wikipedia article is so uber-technical that it puts off people. 92.24.133.177 (talk) 19:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's an article that seems worth reading: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (by Peter Norvig). Nimur (talk) 19:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

If you're looking for quick results, a scripting language like PHP or VB will probably get you the most "interesting"/"useful" results for your time. Starting with something like C++ is a good recipe for getting quite frustrated quickly, because you'll have to spend a lot of time in the trenches learning how to do very basic, boring things (reading text files or lines of keyboard input or juggling numbers or text) before you get to the stage where you'll be making things that look recognizable to you as "applications" (programs with interfaces or internet connectivity or graphics). Personally I enjoy PHP quite a lot, because in combination with HTML, CSS, and Javascript, you can make extremely feature-rich applications very quickly that run in a web browser, which allows you to skip 90% of interface development, which I find terminally boring and slow. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

C# and C++ libraries problem at work

I have run into a rather interesting problem at work. I cannot reveal the details of the code because it's under our company's copyright, but here is an outline of the problem.

One of our applications has an optional library, which is itself written in C#, but needs initialisation parameters, which are supplied by another library, written in C++. This particular C# library must not include any references to any C++ code whatsoever. So the C# library can't call the C++ library to ask for the parameters. I have thought of inversion of control, where the actual main application (which can include both C# and C++ code) tells the library the parameters it needs without it having for ask for them, but then comes the problem that this library is optional, so the application can't reference it. This means there can't be any references in either direction. I have thought of a way where the main application has a configuration file containing fully-qualified assembly and class names of things that need to be initialised, and then initialising all of them in turn. Then I could write a new library, which references both the C# and C++ libraries, and handles all of the initialisation, being loaded dynamically. But this seems like too much work. Is there an easier way? JIP | Talk 19:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Options:

1. It's really not unreasonable for a library to insist that it's passed adequate configuration when it's initialised. If that information is available, but the only reason you can't get it there is because of some internal process, I have to question whether the process will produce quality software. When you find yourself having to engineer around problems imposed by policy rather than by the actual problem space, that seems like a recipe for hacky solutions. At worst one library's initialiser returns an opaque config option (maybe just a string) which is passed to the other. If the optional things are absent this is effectively NULL. Beyond that, you have libraries (which one usually assumes are self-contained servants of the application) talking behind-the-scenes with one another, which seems furtive and hacky. So, on with the hacks...
2. Both libraries create process-specific temporary files (that is, tmp files with the PID in their name), store their own info there, and read the other library's data, as needed. You have to worry about PID reuse, cleanup, and order of initialisation.
3. The two libraries open an IPC socket between each other and squirt config data down that. The OS takes care of cleanup, but you still have order of initialisation to work out.

-- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Remember that, from a purely software perspective, you can reference a DLL/.so explicitly (rather than having it implicit in the executable binary), so you don't drag it in on your own startup (and don't fail if it's absent). That's what dlopen() does on unix and LoadLibraryEx on Windows. So that way you can write code that says dlopen(foolib.so); if (that succeeded) call(dlsym("fooGetConfig")) -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Note that my IPC option assumes the libraries each start processes to do their work; if they're just pure libraries then obviously there's nothing to IPC to. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Hidden Files

I have a problem with finding my folders. For example, if I try to open an attachment to an email, I go to C:\, then I go to C:\Users, then I should be given a choice of Billy and Public. However, the Billy folder (which always has a little padlock next to it) has vanished. I can still access the directory by manually typing C:\Users\Billy, and it will open the directory. However, it won't allow me to access it via the double click navigation of the menu windows. Any ideas? — Fly by Night (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds just like the problem my brother-in-law had some weeks ago - something hid his files. Go the the folder options on the control panel and tick the "show hidden files and folders". The culprit is probably some malware that is still present on your PC and might well cause all kinds of other problems. Unfortunately that malware can be hidden by the TDSS rootkit, making it particularly difficult to remove. A search for "TDSS killer" will suggest some tools to remove the rootkit. Removing the rootkit will allow the malware to be removed by something like Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Astronaut (talk) 11:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

problems with a driving game called Blur.

I have recently got a driving game called blur for my Birthday. I was very happy because I wanted that one. I installed it and everything was great till I found out that I could not use my Logitech MOMO Force Feedback Steering Wheel. It said i have to use the keyboard or a game pad. what the heck is a game pad? I have a new computer and I have no problem installing any game made. I have a terabit hard drive, 6 Gigs of memory, 4 proccesors, and a great Vidio card. OK now here is the main problem. why cant i use my steering wheel? is there some place that i can go and download an updated drivers or something like that?You would think that any new driving games would at least give you the option to use the steering wheel.I have driving games that go back 8 years and they work just fine. all of my Need for speed games work fine. So what do I do now? I have opened the game so WalMart will not take it back or even exchange it. I told them about my problem and they said that i should have read the box before I bought it.Weel I did read the box and it says nothing about not being able to use a steering wheel.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pufinstuf (talk • contribs) 22:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it seems very reasonable that your wheel should work with Blur; in your position I'd be disappointed too. When they say "gamepad" they mean the kind of controller you might use on an Xbox or PS3 (some people plug those into their PC with a special adaptor). Blur is distributed by Activision; you might be best to try to tell them about your problem - see the "ask a question" button on Activision's support website. Perhaps they'll know of a clever way for you to get the wheel to work with Blur. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I agree. Our article you linked to above says it's an arcade racing gaming. Racing games aren't really my thing but my impression is arcade ones are generally not really designed to be played with a steering wheel so even if they work, they often don't work very well. They are designed to be played with a gamepad or perhaps the keyboard. At the very least I would check steering wheel compatibility for any arcade racing game rather then presuming it has. Nil Einne (talk) 01:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't really make sense to me. Why would you have a gamepad or a keyboard in an arcade? Isn't an arcade precisely where you'd expect to find a steering wheel? --Trovatore (talk) 01:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Bear in mind arcade racing in PC and consoles generally means a racing game where the physics is simplified, collisions etc are generally not catastrophic and which is designed to be easy to play and so often are designed for what people have i.e. a gamepad (on consoles) or keyboard/mouse on PC. The comparison is to sim racing where the aim is to properly simulate real life racing sothe physics aims to be accurate, collisions as in real life can have dire consequences and therefore these games usually have a steep learning curve. While these games can be played with a keyboard/mouse or gamepad, obviously using a steering wheel is more in tune with the simulation aspect (at least for most cars) and of course the developers would usually spend some time making sure it works well with these and steering wheel support is likely to be an advertised feature (unlike with many pure arcade games where I suspect even if it works it has minimal testing and often won't be advertised). There are often differences in the camera as well. P.S. From reading the above article, and now checking in the earlier linked article on Blur, it seems it even has combat aspects so I'm even less surprised it doesn't work with a steering wheel. Nil Einne (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure the text given doesn't mean a game played in an actual arcade? That's the obvious meaning of arcade game. --Trovatore (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

What text given? The article on the game calls it a 'arcade racing video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360'. If it appears in any arcades it would be on an Xbox 360 or PS3 in which case it will be using a gamepad. The 'arcade' in arcade racing as used to describe a style of racing video games obviously originates from real life arcades where steering wheels may be common, but the description and style of game when it comes to video games is used for a subset of games where steering wheels are not commonly used if even supported (partially because many people with consoles and PCs don't have steering wheel accessories). Incidentally, however few racing games in arcades don't have a steering wheel, it's quite likely the number of real life racing simulators without steering wheels is fewer.

(The arcade game style is also commonly applied to flight games where arcade style flight games are simplified whereas flight simulators aim for more accuracy. And in the case of PCs although not so much consoles, arcade style flight games have traditionally or at least after the mouse became resonably common, tended to more more optimised for keyboard and mouse whereas stimulators have been more optimised for joystick. Nowadays of course many flight games are for consoles and ports of console games, and may be optimised for the gamepad first. And there are also flight simulators for model aeroplanes where obviously the target controller would be something like a model aeroplane controller. Again what controls are present in flight games in actual arcades is beside the point.

This is somewhat true for space flight simulators even if the accuracy is questionable there and they had somewhat died before the joystick had begun to completely fade. The key point is that arcade style usually refers to a simplified and easy to get in to mass market game which means you need to cater to what controllers most users are likely to have. Whereas with simulator style games, since you're aiming for more accuracy and generally targetting a more specialised crowd, greater support for controllers more dedicated players expect to use for such a game is generally important even if those controllers are not what most general users of a console or PC may have. This is obviously somewhat simplified but is my understanding and limited experience of the market.)

Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems that another problem is this game is a poor quality console port so doesn't even support gamepads properly, it supports the Xbox 360 controller but not much else (someone claims on the Xbox 360 version it works with the Xbox 360 steering wheel accessory as do a number of games which aren't really designed for use with it including GTA but there's no way to fire backwards somewhat supporting my point above, on the PS3 there may be similar issues [1]). Anyway if you really want to use your steering wheel you may be able to either set it up to emulate a Xbox 360 gamepad [2] or to emulate the keyboard [3]. I have no idea how well it works when you do either of these although you may be able to set up sufficient customisations to get around issues like not being able to fire backwards (unlike with consoles where you don't generally have that option). Nil Einne (talk) 02:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Mono/Moonlight/Chromium conflict? 3 different mscorlib.dll versions

When I try to run monodevelop on my Ubuntu system, I get the following error:

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class System.EventHandler`1 could not be loaded, used in mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: Missing method .ctor in assembly /usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.Ide.dll, type System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CompilerGeneratedAttribute

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CompilerGeneratedAttribute could not be loaded, used in MonoDevelop.Ide

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: Can't find custom attr constructor image: /usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.Ide.dll mtoken: 0x0a00134c

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: Missing method .ctor in assembly /usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.Ide.dll, type System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CompilerGeneratedAttribute

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: Can't find custom attr constructor image: /usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.Ide.dll mtoken: 0x0a00134c

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class Mono.Addins.AddinManager could not be loaded, used in Mono.Addins, Version=0.4.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0738eb9f132ed756

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class System.Collections.Generic.List`1 could not be loaded, used in mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class MonoDevelop.Core.LoggingService could not be loaded, used in MonoDevelop.Core, Version=2.4.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: The class Mono.Addins.AddinManager could not be loaded, used in Mono.Addins, Version=0.4.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0738eb9f132ed756

** (/usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe:23420): WARNING **: Missing method get_Registry in assembly /usr/lib/monodevelop/bin/MonoDevelop.exe, type Mono.Addins.AddinManager

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'Mono.Addins.AddinManager' from assembly 'Mono.Addins, Version=0.4.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0738eb9f132ed756'.

On other Mono/Moonlight apps, I get similar errors, always mentioning mscorlib. I have 3 versions of mscorlib.dll on 5 different paths:

chris@singularity:~$ sudo find / -iname "mscorlib.dll"
/usr/lib/moonlight/plugin/mscorlib.dll
/usr/lib/moonlight/2.0/mscorlib.dll
/usr/lib/mono/2.0/mscorlib.dll
/home/chris/.config/chromium/Default/Extensions/ldjmcjaammmjjilbjpacphekcgfnmdlk/3.99.0.3_0/moonlight/mscorlib.dll
chris@singularity:~$ dpkg -S mscorlib
moonlight-plugin-core: /usr/lib/moonlight/plugin/mscorlib.dll
moonlight-web-devel: /usr/lib/moonlight/2.0/mscorlib.dll
libmono-corlib1.0-cil: /usr/lib/mono/1.0/mscorlib.dll
libmono-corlib2.0-cil: /usr/lib/mono/2.0/mscorlib.dll

moonlight-plugin-core and moonlight-web-devel have a 1590272-byte version; the two libmonos have a 2095104-byte version; and the one in my home folder is 1734656 bytes. Could this be behind my issues? If so, what version of the dll do I want? NeonMerlin 23:25, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

DVD Mystery

I have an old Optiplex GX 270 and the DVD Drive is not showing up in the My Computer window. I've replaced the DVD and the cable and still no avail. I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a way to test to see if the Power Supply is working functually to that part for the Hard Drive and Floppy disk and the main power works and they are on different Cords. Or Am I having a really bad Driver problem and what to do. Please and Thank you152.27.56.61 (talk) 23:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC) I already figured out it wasn't the Power Supply. The bloody thing opens up when I pushed the button. I am stupid. So it's either the connection on the Motherboard or a driver. Any help would be vastly appreciated.152.27.56.61 (talk) 23:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems rather unlikely it would be a driver issue unless you somehow completely screwed up the OS. In any case, you haven't said whether the drive is detected by the BIOS. Also since I presume this is a PATA drive you should clearly specify if anything is sharing the cable with the DVD drive and if the hard drive is stand alone have you tried putting the DVD together with the HD while changing the jumpers as appropriate? BTW am I correct in presuming when you say the DVD is not showing up in 'My Computer' you have actually checked device manager or the equivalent in your operating system to confirm the DVD drive is not detected by the OS, rather then it just being a case of it not being assigned a drive letter or whatever which would result it not showing up in the list of drives in 'My Computer' even if the OS knows the drive is there. Nil Einne (talk) 01:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

You can check whether the BIOS has detected the drive thus:

1. After power-on, press F2 to go into BIOS Setup
2. Select Drive Configuration
3. Select the CD-ROM Device
4. Check that the model matches what you've got installed.

Mitch Ames (talk) 07:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)