CD ROM Drive

[rocsell]

Just found out after formatting my hard drive that my CD Rom is not recognized...meaning, if I attach it to it's own ide cable in its own slot as master, the system doesn't recognize it. If I attach it as a slave on the ide cable connecting my hard drive, it seems to work. What are the possible problems that I may have with this slot on the board and what can I do to fix this???\

Thanks,

[david eaton]

Hi rocsell.
If the drive works as a slave, but not as a master, have you checked the jumpers on the drive itself? It may well be that changing the links is all thats needed.

David

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Any system, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

[ErnieK]

Hi there rocsell

Have you tried swapping the IDE cables over to see if it is possibly a faulty cable?

Also check that there are no bent pins on the second IDE and make sure that the cable is seated correctly. (My old comp with PC CHips Motherboard has a problem that when the cable is FULLY on I get no response - I have to jiggle the board end of the IDE cable and set it at slight slant (angle) before it works - so check that out. I took a lot of cursing to discover this I can assure you)

And lastly, After installing the CD drive as master on the second IDE are you going into the bios and making sure that it is recognised there? (Usually says press "delete" or "F1" as soon as you boot up. If you are not to sure about it just remove the keyboard and you should the get message telling you to go into BIOS and then it tells you how to enter the BIOS)

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Ernie

[rocsell]

David...the jumpers were checked...it was set to master, slave, cable select and even no jumper but still no response...

Ernie...I tried a different cable so it's not that...I will however jiggle it around and check the pins on the board itself (bios is O.K)

Thanks for your responses guys....this forum ROCKS!!!!!

[Sylvander]

Hello rocsel

Are all the drive parameters correctly configured in the BIOS Setup?
I notice you did not respond to requests to check the settings.

Set them all to "Auto" ["Dynamically Auto Detect"] so they will be detected and correctly set at each boot and you will see them being detected and identified at every boot and checking their correct detection and configuration becomes part of the routine.

If at present Secondary Master [and Slave] are set to "None" [in "Standard CMOS Setup" in "BIOS Setup"] then no drive will work in these positions.
I wonder what Primary Slave is set to [in the BIOS]?
Whatever it is it works! But GO CHECK IT.

Here's a quote:
"The BIOS performs a "system inventory" of sorts, doing more tests to determine what sort of hardware is in the system. Modern BIOSes have many automatic settings and will determine memory timing (for example) based on what kind of memory it finds. Many BIOSes can also dynamically set hard drive parameters and access modes, and will determine these at roughly this time. Some will display a message on the screen for each drive they detect and configure this way"

Reformatting the Hard Drive should not have changed these settings, but it looks like something was done. This all assumes that the connections and jumpers are sound and correctly fitted and that the drive is ok.