IDE a go go

[Fitchmeister]

Got this weird problem. My PC hangs occasionally on 'Detecting IDE devices'. Opening the case,Power off, reseating one of the IDE connections (any of them, have tried different ends etc..), and then rebooting seems to work. Though sometimes the whole system hangs and the drive leds go static. Have just replaced my two CD drives - Liteon dvd bunrer and ASUS DVD ROM, and the damn thing wouldnt even post. Removed and replaced all hardware and connections to M'Bd and it came up again. Have tried an independant 'known good' hardrive to no effect and have swapped out and over IDE cables. A faulty MBd? Reflash Bios? - Havent done that yet. Any thoughts welcome.

MBd - ASUS A7n8x Nforce
IDE HDDs 2 x Western Digital Caviar 70MB & 120 Mb
CDs - Lite on DVD burner & ASUS 16x ROM
RAM - Corsair XMS 256Mb
CPU - Barton 2500
IDE cables - AKASA
Chieftec Case & 300W PSU
Its blue

 

[uzi9mm]

Make sure the IDE devices are configured properly in the BIOS.
Make sure that the IDE cables have the red wire going to the upper right hand corner of all devices (the HD's should be alright.)
Check the jumper settings. Put one HD on Master, the other on Slave.
And put that optical drive on the Secondary IDE channel, with it being master.

 

[Fitchmeister]

Jumpers already checked, IDE cables are keyed and labelled 'master' 'slave' & 'MBd' so i cant get them the wrong way round. 2 HDDs are off primary IDE & 2 CDs off Secondary, master/slave jumpers match correct plug on IDE cable.