System won't detect cd-rom drive! Help!

[CableModem]

I'm reformatting an old Dell that had Windows 95. When I tried to reinstall windows 95 off a cd, it said there was no disc in the drive. when i ran dionostics, it couldn't detect the cd-rom drive. it is NOT a hardware problem. the computer can't boot off its own hard drive. I need to make a bootable driver for a Mitsui 12x cd rom drive. I don't know how, though.

 

[didi]

b4 u format the cdrom can use or not?
without installing any window, how did u ran diagnosis?

 

[Cappy]

In your bios , Change the boot order to your CD rom drive .
Windows 95 ??

 

[raj_1024]

try to load the drivers of the cd-rom driver given by the vendor or load it from internet which is easily available.Win95 is the basic os which has to be feeded everything why don't u go win98 sec edition if ur system is fast enough go for winxp or win2000 which does'nt have such promblems.

 

[CableModem]

no, the system can't boot off its own hd. i used a bootable dell dianostics diskette and it said there was no cdrom drive when there was. i dont know if the system could see the cdrom drive before the format because i haden't used it for 2 years be4 the format. (200mhz)
and i did change the bios to the cdrom first but it still didn't work, it just said that there was no disc in drive d