help with IDE DVD drive not recognizing...

[therascalking]

hey all...

so im trying to fix my friends old P4... its a 'custom' comp... mostly parts from a company called 'SOYO', looks like... and its running WinXP Pro, SP2... only ive run into a problem i dont seem to be able to fix... im not terribly familiar with IDE (ive been using SATA on all of my builds) or the primary/secondary or master/slave system, hence my conundrum...

heres the problem tho:

theres two drives in the comp, a DVD drive, and a CD ROM drive... and i know both work, cuz ive had them both working separately at different times... but i need then to work TOGETHER... haha... right now the DVD drive is plugged into what i assume is the primary position, and also to 4-pin power... but thats it... and then the CD drive is plugged into the next link of that IDE cable, and 4-pin power... now both of the drives have power and open and such, but it only recognizes the CD drive in the secondary position currently...
i tried going into the BIOS and having it auto-detect the primary IDE device... but to no avail...

i think i have everything hooked up right, but im not sure... and i dont know what else to do in the BIOS to make sure it detects both drives... anyone have any suggestions as to what to else to try?

thanks alot - RK

 

[eyeCpc]

There's no primary but a master position at the end of an ide cable. It sounds like the jumper is set correctly on the cd drive as slave while the dvd is either slave or cable select if just installed.

When looking at the rear of the drive's casing you will note the two rows of small pins with a small plastic cap crossing over to cover a pin on each row. That's the jumper while the two rows of pins in the recessed area are known as the jumper block. Now move the jumper to MA or MS by referring to the usual marking found on the drive's casing or lable for jumper settings.

 

[therascalking]

okay, i totally dont get what you just said... cable select? MA? MS?

but... you at least gave me the info that i needed to mount a better google search for a guide to doing it... thanks :] - RK

 

[SirCyber]

MA=Master setting. meaning that it will be recognized as the primary, as you put it. as eyeCpc said, there should be a diagram or something on the back identifying where to move the jumper to. if it's set to slave, that could be your problem. eyeCpc, I've actually always used CS as my jumper setting but have heard that's not a good idea. never had any problems though. RK, CS means Cable Select, meaning that the device will "choose" based off of where the cables are plugged into.

 

[eyeCpc]

For prebuilds you will just always see hard drives set to cable select or no jumper at all. That's done for simple replacement and upgrades by each company's service tech's.

The jumper itself is simply a small plastic cap that fits over two pins. The position on the cable is what determines where that will be put. Drives ship in the cable select position which means it shouldn't make any difference whether the drive is on the end of the cable or on the center connector.

On a few old builds a second hard drive wouldn't even be seen unless set to the CS position. Optical drives are a lot more fussy however where generally CS won't work at times. You are practically mandated to set the jumper accordingly with most systems with MA or MS for master st the end and SL or SA for slave on the center connector.

A pair of tweezers or a thin pair of pliers are common item for seeing a jumper moved unless you have long finger nails?! where you can get ahold of it. Once set the jumper is set correctly you shouldn't have any other problems.

 

[KSoD]

Use the Cable Select Jumper setting. Then you do not have to worry about hte Master or Slave setup. Cable Select will do it for you.

Also there is a master and slave on the IDE cable.

Header-----------------connection 1------connection 2

The header goes into the Mobo. Connection 1 is the master and Connection 2 is the slave. If you do not believe me. Check it after you install Windows which device takes priorty.

 

[therascalking]

*SOLVED* help with IDE DVD drive not recognizing...

i actually figured it out after googling and reading an article on Tom's Hardware... thanks to the two who posted tho - RK

 

[KSoD]

Well

Sorry been scared of the hardware area for a while. Decided to finally give it a go with my old knowledge of hardware. :laughing: