DVD Drive and DVD Burner not Detected

I

itzjas0n

New Member
Hello, everyone.

My current computer is...
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe NF4SLI 939
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 MB 3500+ 939 512K R
Memory: 1GB Corsair
Video Card: GeForce 6600 GT
Hard Drive: 160 GB Segate

I DO NOT have my operating system installed because I cannot get my CD Drives to open up for me to install Windows XP Professional. I DO NOT have a BIOS screen. When I press <DEL> at start up, it just shows me the BIOS version and tells me to press <Ctrl-S> or <F4> to enter the RAID Utility screen.

I am currently using my old computer to find a solution to fix my new one.

I have my DVD drive as master and DVD burner as slave. When I have my power supply plugs plugged into the DVD drive and DVD burner, the drives eject. When I have my IDE cables plugged in along with the power supply, the drives will not eject. I currently have my IDE cable plugged into the secondary IDE plug on the mother board.

On the POST screen, it shows me the Primary IDE Master, Primary IDE Slave, Secondary IDE Master, Secondary IDE Slave. All of them say "None." For example:

Primary IDE Master: None
Primary IDE Slave: None
Secondary IDE Master: None
Secondary IDE Slave: None
 
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Just remember that the master is connected to the end connector on the cable with ide drives. It sounds like you probably put the drveis set as slaves on the end and the mastered drives on the center connectors.
 
Sounds like your typical jumper problem. Both typcially are on a single cable, set one to master, the other to slave. You could always try cable select, but I've come across few computers that really worked with that setup...
 
I am pretty sure I connected the cables correctly. I have the master IDE plug plugged into the master DVD Drive. I have the slave IDE plug plugged into the slave DVD burner drive. Then I connected the last plug into the secondary IDE port on the motherboard. I have one IDE cable connecting my DVD drive, DVD burner, and motherboard.
 
Are the jumpers the pins that set master, slave, or cable select? If so, I'm pretty sure I put them in correctly.

DVD Drive: Master
DVD Burner: Slave
Hard Drive: Master
 
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Yeah, those are them... Try one as master, the other as slave. If they still don't get detected, try both to Cable Select.

Also, be sure your computer's set to auto detect the drives.
 
If you left the left the jumpers at factory default when putting them into the case they may have been left at cable select just the way they are usually shipped out. Hard drives are normally seen set to CS when packed. On cd or dvd optical drives the master/slave configuration on the secondary cable is strict there. Look on the rear of the casing of the drives to see where the small plastic cap sits at.

Right above the two rows of small pins with a small cap on one pair you will see MA, SL, and CS on most drives with the first letter above the second. You have to have a small pair of tweezers or pliers to grab those very lightly in order to pull them out and move them if you find that they are all on the CS position.
 
The reason cable select normally doesn't work is because you need a special ribbon cable. It has a notch out of it, a hole in the middle of the ribbon. You'll know it when you see it.

It does not matter in the slightest whether you put the master on the end of the ribbon or in the middle. I have used both configurations extensively.

What it sounds like is that one of your drives is disfunctional. Try plugging them in separately (by the way, it is never a good idea to plug a drive into the power without having the ribbon cable connected. It can cause damage).

If plugging them in separately doesn't work, replace the ribbon cable and then try it.

That is the only two things I can think of off the top of my head.
 
SirKenin said:
The reason cable select normally doesn't work is because you need a special ribbon cable. It has a notch out of it, a hole in the middle of the ribbon. You'll know it when you see it.

It does not matter in the slightest whether you put the master on the end of the ribbon or in the middle. I have used both configurations extensively.

What it sounds like is that one of your drives is disfunctional. Try plugging them in separately (by the way, it is never a good idea to plug a drive into the power without having the ribbon cable connected. It can cause damage).

If plugging them in separately doesn't work, replace the ribbon cable and then try it.

That is the only two things I can think of off the top of my head.
Click to expand...

You will find that all ide cables have a lock notch for one way only insertion when connecting a drive. Both ends of the cable have this. When running two hard drives in a case I often have used cable select to see the second drive being able to acessed. Setting a jumper to master or slave can very well hamper things if they are connected wrong. Optical drives are the most fussy in that regard.

Cable select generally won't with two optical drives on the secondary cable. The bios searches the primary cable first by default then switches to the secondary when no boot device is found on the primary. The secondary cable or jumper settings are the first things to look over. Two bad ide cables?
 
PC eye, I swear... Sometimes you just frustrate me to no end. Please pay attention to my posts before responding, and then I won't get annoyed and be tempted to get cranky.

The "notch" or "hole", notice I specified both and did so for a reason, is in the middle of the actual ribbon, between the middle and end connectors. One of the wires is cut in the ribbon to help identify which is master and which is slave.

If you do not use this special cable (and no motherboard I know comes with them in the box), cable select will NOT work. If it does, you fluked out.

Cable select WILL work on two optical drives provided that special cable is used.

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/ide-cable-select.html
 
SirKenin said:
PC eye, I swear... Sometimes you just frustrate me to no end. Please pay attention to my posts before responding, and then I won't get annoyed and be tempted to get cranky.

The "notch" or "hole", notice I specified both and did so for a reason, is in the middle of the actual ribbon, between the middle and end connectors. One of the wires is cut in the ribbon to help identify which is master and which is slave.

If you do not use this special cable (and no motherboard I know comes with them in the box), cable select will NOT work. If it does, you fluked out.

Cable select WILL work on two optical drives provided that special cable is used.

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/ide-cable-select.html
Click to expand...

No you don't realize is that I've never seen cable select having a need on optical drives(cd/dvd) where it has need often with multiple ide hard drives. Everytime I have installed cd roms, cd writers, dvd roms, or dvd burners the master slave configuration always works except for seein a bad cable or a dead drive(rare except for crappy 56x that fall apart). If the cables got plugged into the board reversed? somehow that would goof things up.
 
Nobody asked you whether you saw a need for it. That wasn't the point at issue. The point at issue was how to make it work.
 
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