I've been trying to reconfigure an early Pentium with two hard drives, a CD-Rom and a CD Writer.

However, I cannot get Windows to recognise the CD Rom.

The boot hard drive and CD Writer are on the Primary IDE channel, and the second hard drive and CD ROM are on the Secondary. I have the hard drives jumpered as masters and the CDs jumpered as slaves.

All devices appear to be recognised on boot-up. When I boot-up from a floppy, both CD drives are accessible. But when I go to 'My Computer' in Windows 98, only the CD Writer appears (Drive E).

Checking under the device list, there seems to be a problem with the Secondary IDE Controller (dual fifo) - it has an exclamation mark next to it. I tried to remove it, but was told that it was controlled by another device (Bus Master IDE).

I removed the Bus Master IDE device and restarted. Windows reinstalled it, but I still get the same problem (and the exclamation mark is still present next to the secondary controller).

I've checked my cable connections, etc, fairly thoroughly... can anyone give me any suggestions??

Thanks!

Are you using windows 98? If so check here.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q245/6/82.asp&NoWebContent=1

Do you have any device conflicts? Since you can see it and access it with DOS and not in windows, it is a good bet that its a Windows problem.

V

Hello hurricane,

Welcome tohttp://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif Forums!

You might want to try checking on the situation in SAFEMODE and see whether you've multiple devices listed. If so, you'll want to use the REMOVE button and do so to all devices listed. Reboot and let Windoze find and reinstall.

It's possible you've "Ghost drivers" messing up the device...;)

Try going to:
"BIOS Setup>PnP/PCI Configuration" to make
"Reset Configuration Data = Enabled"
Then "Save & Exit Setup".
[Don't worry, the BIOS will automatically retun the setting to "Disabled" again to lock the settings (they're locked at present)]

This will re-detect all your PCI hardware under the control of the BIOS [which includes the primary & secondary IDE controllers & drives] so as to make non-conflicting resource allocations and record the new allocations in the ESCD. These new settings are then used at EVERY startup [until you repeat this "FORCE UPDATE" of the ESCD]

Here's some reading on the topic:
http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/escd.htm
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/res/pnpESCD-c.html
http://www.qdi.nl/support/dmipool.htm

In "Device Manager" click "View Devices by Connection" and click "Numlock + *" to expand the tree and view the devices which come under the BIOS and also "PCI Bus".

I recommend:
[In "BIOS Setup>PnP/PCI Configuration"]
"PnP O/S Installed = No" [both the BIOS AND THEN the O/S will allocate]
"Resources Controlled By = Auto"

Are the drivers for the motherboard installed? That can cause the error shown in device manager.

David

Thanks for those last two tips, will look at them tonight.

Last night I booted up in safe mode and got rid of lots of the doubled devices. There were quite a few extras, as the HD I'm booting up from used to belong to another computer.

Unfortunately I now seem to have lost both CD drives, and have errors on both IDE controllers. Further snooping revealed that both drives are running in MS-Dos compatability mode, but I can't find a way to turn this off (didn't have time to go into the BIOS for this).

There doesn't appear to be a resource conflict (at least as far as windows is concerned), although looking through the I/O data, there seem to be many duplicate ranges allocated to the two IDE controllers. I'm not familiar with the normal setup for these, though, so this may be typical.

Tonight I'll try and reset the config data as suggested.

the HD I'm booting up from used to belong to another computer.If you have not formatted and installed an operating system to match this computer you will have difficulties.

An operating system configures itself for each Motherboard and its various devices...

An operating system is "generic" on the CD, however, once it is loaded onto each computer it becomes uniquely assigned...

Originally posted by hurricane
Unfortunately I now seem to have lost both CD drives, and have errors on both IDE controllers. Further snooping revealed that both drives are running in MS-Dos compatability mode, but I can't find a way to turn this off (didn't have time to go into the BIOS for this).


This is very likely to be due to missing or wrong motherboard drivers. As the HD you are useing came from another machine, it is set up with drivers for the M/B in the original machine.

If you know the type and model of motherboard you are using, a quick Google search will probably find the driver files.

David

You said “the HD I'm booting up from used to belong to another computer.”

You didn’t just switch a HDD with an installed operating system and a set of drivers installed for THAT set of hardware into another set of hardware [your PC] did you?
Which O/S are you using?
You should, at the very least, have re-run Windows Setup to [detect the fact that most of the hardware had changed and] repair the installation.
Or did you reformat it and re-install?

OOps!
You beat me to the draw Whyzman:)

Guilty as charged:eek:

I still have the original hard drive mounted, I'm just trying to boot off the newer, much larger one. The new drive has Windows 98 2nd Ed, the old one only Windows 95.

Because Windows seemed to do an auto plug and play search and install on most of the hardware components (including motherboard stuff) when I first booted up, I thought I would be OK...

sounds like it is worth doing a Windows re-installation before trying to troubleshoot further... if I do this, will it clean out the old devices and drivers??

ah, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!