Missing CD drives - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Chris H · 09-17-2006, 07:57 AM

Hi,

I turned on my computer today and it says that there is no cd drives connected

I look in device manager and theres no yellow ? marks and they aren't shown in there. They have power to both of them. It started off as the primary drive not being detected so i checked the cables for loose connectionsd then the secondary drive is not detected now

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks, Chris

Martel · 09-17-2006, 08:08 AM

First check to see if they are detected in BIOS... If not, check the ribbon cables to make sure they're plugged in properly and jumper settings to make sure they're set properly.

If you have two drives on the IDE ribbon here's how they should be set up:

With a 40-connector cable (the individual ridges are slightly bigger) then the one at the end should be set to master and the one in the middle should be set to slave.

With an 80-connector cable (the individual ridges are slightly smaller) then the above settings will work just fine or you can put them both on cable select.

To be safe, using the jumper settings as described for 40-connector cables will always work but then you have to be aware of it when swapping drives around.

If none of this works then pull the drives out and test them one at a time, jumpered to master and plugged in at the end of the ribbon cable.

Also make sure you plug the ribbon cable in in the correct direction. There should be a piece of plastic that sticks up on one side of the plug that goes into a slot on the drive, but sometimes they don't fit just right and you can plug it in upside down (I've been working on computers since I was six and I have made this error with a cable that didn't have the extra plastic piece sticking up).

If none of this works you may have a bad ribbon cable.

Chris H · 09-18-2006, 08:34 AM

Thank, it was the secondary drive that was being dodgy so i have ordered a new one but i'm not sure if this is related but xp will just freeze completly sometime and not respond at all. At first i thought it was the ram but during boot up it says that they all 512mb is ok so then i thought it might be something to do with the cd drives

Chris

Martel · 09-18-2006, 05:40 PM

If you're unsure of whether your RAM is good, use a program called memtest to check it. It's what I use at work and has never failed me yet. Should be easy to find with google.

That check on bootup really doesn't tell you much at all as far as the health of your RAM.

09-17-2006, 07:57 AM	#1 (permalink)
Chris H Tilted	Missing CD drives Hi, I turned on my computer today and it says that there is no cd drives connected I look in device manager and theres no yellow ? marks and they aren't shown in there. They have power to both of them. It started off as the primary drive not being detected so i checked the cables for loose connectionsd then the secondary drive is not detected now Any help much appreciated. Thanks, Chris __________________ Intel Celeron 2.4ghz 512mb ram 333mhz NVIDIA GEforce fx5200 128mb 40GB Maxtor HDD

09-17-2006, 08:08 AM	#2 (permalink)
Martel Insane Location: Sage's bed	First check to see if they are detected in BIOS... If not, check the ribbon cables to make sure they're plugged in properly and jumper settings to make sure they're set properly. If you have two drives on the IDE ribbon here's how they should be set up: With a 40-connector cable (the individual ridges are slightly bigger) then the one at the end should be set to master and the one in the middle should be set to slave. With an 80-connector cable (the individual ridges are slightly smaller) then the above settings will work just fine or you can put them both on cable select. To be safe, using the jumper settings as described for 40-connector cables will always work but then you have to be aware of it when swapping drives around. If none of this works then pull the drives out and test them one at a time, jumpered to master and plugged in at the end of the ribbon cable. Also make sure you plug the ribbon cable in in the correct direction. There should be a piece of plastic that sticks up on one side of the plug that goes into a slot on the drive, but sometimes they don't fit just right and you can plug it in upside down (I've been working on computers since I was six and I have made this error with a cable that didn't have the extra plastic piece sticking up). If none of this works you may have a bad ribbon cable. __________________ Anamnesis Last edited by Martel; 09-17-2006 at 08:12 AM..

09-18-2006, 08:34 AM	#3 (permalink)
Chris H Tilted	Thank, it was the secondary drive that was being dodgy so i have ordered a new one but i'm not sure if this is related but xp will just freeze completly sometime and not respond at all. At first i thought it was the ram but during boot up it says that they all 512mb is ok so then i thought it might be something to do with the cd drives Chris __________________ Intel Celeron 2.4ghz 512mb ram 333mhz NVIDIA GEforce fx5200 128mb 40GB Maxtor HDD

09-18-2006, 05:40 PM	#4 (permalink)
Martel Insane Location: Sage's bed	If you're unsure of whether your RAM is good, use a program called memtest to check it. It's what I use at work and has never failed me yet. Should be easy to find with google. That check on bootup really doesn't tell you much at all as far as the health of your RAM. __________________ Anamnesis